The European Commission gave itself a pat on the back in June 2026 when it named Jim Hagemann Snabe, chairman of Siemens AG’s supervisory board, as the bloc’s first-ever Special Envoy for Industrial Artificial Intelligence. The EU ombudsman has now opened a formal inquiry into whether that appointment was handled properly, following complaints from a coalition of NGOs who argue that Snabe’s day job and his new advisory mandate are not exactly a conflict-free combination.
The coalition of civil society groups warned that Snabe’s continuing position at Siemens “may compromise the envoy’s independence and impartiality,” a concern that lands with some weight given Siemens’s reported lobbying expenditures of at least €3.5 million annually in Brussels.
The envoy role itself is not a minor ceremonial posting. Snabe was appointed on June 3, 2026, with a mandate running until March 31, 2027, placing him at the center of European policymaking on industrial AI during one of the most consequential regulatory periods the sector has ever seen. The EU AI Act is already in force, and the Commission has been working on so-called “omnibus” simplification packages that could reshape how companies actually comply with it.
