The European Regulatory Mirage: Epistemic Dependence and the Limits of AI Governance

Abstract Over the last decade, the European Union has positioned itself as a global regulatory benchmark in digital governance through instruments such as the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This article argues, however, that European AI governance operates under a structural constraint: a gap between regulatory authority and the material and epistemic capacities required to enforce it. Drawing on the concept of epistemic infrastructures, the analysis shows how effective oversight depends on access to datasets, evaluation benchmarks and technical verification tools controlled by regulated actors. Through an analysis of key provisions of the AI Act, the article identifies an enforcement gap in which legal obligations cannot be independently verified. This dynamic is interpreted as a form of epistemic capture. The trajectory of Illinois's Biometric Information Privacy Act illustrates how regulatory frameworks erode under structural asymmetries. The article concludes that effective AI governance requires a shift from compliance‐based regulation towards infrastructure‐based sovereignty.