The EU's attempts to regulate Artificial Intelligence could be met with future challenges resulting from an agreement on e-Commerce at the level of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), according to a new study published on Tuesday (26 January). Talks have been ongoing since January 2019 between members of the WTO in a bid to agree on global rules to facilitate worldwide e-commerce transactions. However, concerns have been highlighted that the text currently backed by the EU could result in a prohibition on signatories from adopting legislation that obliges firms to provide access to the source code of their software. In this vein, a report published by the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv) says that a number of EU objectives in the field of digital policy currently on the table could be stifled by the WTO agreement. "The EU's possibility to adopt rules that, for example, mandate external audits of AI systems will be confined to the policy space that is allowed under trade law," the study notes, adding that the European Council and the Commission are responsible for ensuring that trade deals it makes are compatible with internal policy initiatives.