Austria lobbies EU to host Anthropic after US export controls cut off Claude access

Austria’s State Secretary for Digitalization, Alexander Pröll, wrote to EU Technology Commissioner Henna Virkkunen on June 28, 2026, urging the bloc to explore hosting Anthropic within the European Union. It is the first government move of its kind since US export controls cut off foreign access to the company’s models.

The letter recasts a US enforcement action as a European opportunity. On June 12, the US Commerce Department blocked all foreign nationals from accessing Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, and Anthropic disabled both globally within hours. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick partially restored Mythos 5 on June 26 for roughly 100 trusted US organizations; Fable 5 remains under the directive, leaving European developers locked out.

Any discussion, Pröll wrote, should center on offering Anthropic “legal certainty, market access, capital and a set of values that suits this company,” arguing it is vital that Europe not be cut off from major innovations. Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment on the Austrian proposal.

The diplomatic push is unfolding alongside a grey market that has already routed around the rules. A network of API proxy services, known in Chinese developer circles as “transfer stations,” now sells Claude access at 70 to 90 percent below Anthropic’s official pricing, taking payment through WeChat or Alipay.

The arbitrage carries real risks for buyers. Operators farm free credits, split subscriptions across many users, and in some cases route requests to cheaper models while billing for premium Claude tiers. One audit of 17 proxies found access advertised as “Gemini 2.5” scoring just 37 percent on a medical benchmark against the model’s 83.82 percent official mark, evidence of routine substitution. To defeat the biometric identity checks Anthropic added in April, some operators recruit people in lower-income countries to pass live selfie verification on others’ behalf.

Whether Brussels takes up Pröll’s pitch, the episode shows how quickly an export curb on two models reshaped both diplomacy and a black market.