US clampdown on Anthropic models sends EU sovereignty surge into overdrive

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US clampdown on Anthropic models sends EU sovereignty surge into overdrive

Brussels says access curbs prove Europe needs greater technological independence

Connor Jones

Connor<br>Jones

Cybersecurity reporter

Published<br>mon 15 Jun 2026 // 14:09 UTC

As Anthropic execs prepare to visit the White House after effectively being ordered to cease offering the company's Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models, the European Commission says the incident is another example of why the EU must achieve technological autonomy.<br>Anthropic announced on Friday that the US government issued an export control directive that required the AI upstart to prevent any non-US citizens from accessing its cybersecurity models Mythos 5 and Fable 5.<br>The order meant even some Anthropic staff could not use its models. And as there’s no way to tell if someone on the internet is a US citizen, the order effectively meant that the AI company had to stop making the models available to everyone to ensure compliance.

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Anthropic isn't sure why the White House issued the order.

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"Our understanding is that the government believes it has become aware of a method of bypassing, or 'jailbreaking,' Fable 5," the company said. "To date, the government has only given us verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak, which essentially consists of asking the model to read a specific codebase and fix any software flaws.<br>"Our understanding is that one potential jailbreak was shared with the government."<br>The Wall Street Journal reports that the directive was the result of conversations held between Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and US officials, including Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, and Jassy's report of a possible jailbreak. Anthropic executives are set to meet with US officials at the White House this week to gain a fuller understanding of the developments that informed the directive, according to Axios.<br>Whatever the Trump administration's reason for the order, Mythos and Fable remain unavailable at the time of writing.<br>A case study for sovereignty<br>The incident has not gone unnoticed.<br>Thomas Regnier, spokesperson for the European Commission, said the body is still examining the directive's implications for the EU amid concerns that the US can switch off access to technology that allied partners could soon come to rely on heavily.<br>"The Commission has taken note of Anthropic's statement regarding the US export control directive on its most advanced models and is assessing its implications, including for users in the European Union," he said.

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"We are seeing a new generation of highly capable AI models reach the market. These models offer significant benefits, including for cyber-defence, but they also raise serious cybersecurity concerns that need to be addressed.<br>"This is a shared challenge, not one confined to a single jurisdiction or company. We believe that contingency measures taken in this light should not be discriminatory against partners.<br>"This development is a further illustration of why Europe needs to strengthen its technological sovereignty, and it underlines the relevance of the cybersecurity and AI legislation already in place at EU level, including the AI Act, the Cyber Resilience Act, and the NIS2 Directive – as tools to manage exactly this kind of risk on our own terms.<br>"We are looking closely at the practical consequences of this for European users of these services."<br>The comments come days after the EU launched its European Technological Sovereignty Package, a slew of measures aimed at sharply reducing its reliance on technology developed by the US and China.<br>Cybersecurity-specific AI models such as Mythos 5, Fable 5, and OpenAI's GPT-5.5 are still very early in their development, and are not yet available to many organizations, let alone casual users.<br>The cost of dependency stays invisible until it's too late

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The US directive to prevent foreign nationals from accessing Anthropic's models will nevertheless prompt concerns among global partners and organizations about how a foreign government can simply revoke access to technology on which they may become highly reliant in the future.<br>For Aled Lloyd Owen, chief of staff at Responsible AI UK, the news of Anthropic restricting access to its models only strengthens the case for the EU's plans to loosen its ties to US tech.<br>"This is another incident that just proves the rule and proves that [the EU] must move faster and deeper, and really establish that independence as soon as possible," he told The Register.<br>As for alternatives, Mistral AI is one of the EU's flagship AI development projects. It is widely regarded as a fast, capable, open-source model, but one that lacks the performance of "frontier" models such as those made by Anthropic and OpenAI.<br>Owen said there is a limit to how quickly the EU can achieve autonomy, but the latest...