PauseAI demonstration at the European Parliament (23 February 2026)

On 23 February 2026, PauseAI staged a demonstration at Place du Luxembourg in Brussels — the square directly outside the European Parliament — drawing approximately 100 demonstrators. The protest was the culminating public action of PauseCon Brussels (21–23 February 2026), a three-day organizer training and mobilization event for PauseAI chapter volunteers from across Europe.

PauseCon Brussels

PauseCon Brussels ran 21–23 February at First Euroflat (Bd Charlemagne 50, Brussels), organised by Joseph Miller and EllaH through PauseAI Events Global. The 87-person conference programme covered community-building strategy, social-media organizing, and flyering, and culminated on the final day in two public-facing actions: a conference inside the European Parliament in the morning and the Place du Luxembourg demonstration in the afternoon (15:30–16:30 CET).

Parliamentary conference

The morning conference inside the European Parliament featured MEPs Ondřej Kolář, Saskia Bricmont, and Brando Benifei (primary architect of the EU AI Act), alongside European Parliament Vice-President Victor Negrescu, Professor Stuart Russell (University of California Berkeley; lead author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach), and Risto Uuk (Head of European Policy, Future of Life Institute). Maxime Fournes called for a pause in the development of superintelligence; Russell characterised the development trajectory as one towards loss of human control. Each of the MEPs present acknowledged catastrophic AI risks.

Demands

PauseAI called on the EU to: (1) initiate negotiations for a global treaty to pause the development of frontier AI systems beyond the current capability frontier, conditional on demonstrable progress in AI safety and alignment research; (2) establish international oversight mechanisms including compute monitoring and safety evaluations; (3) champion democratic governance of AI.

Outcomes

PauseCon participants subsequently met with their own MEPs to discuss the issues raised at the conference, and many volunteer projects were initiated over the weekend. Five days later, on 28 February 2026, PauseAI UK co-organised the March Against the Machines in London alongside Pull the Plug — drawing 300–500 participants and characterised as the largest AI safety protest on record at that time. The two events together mark the campaign's most concentrated European week of action to date.