The screening of foreign investments into the European Union: a legal appraisal

The present thesis investigates the screening of foreign direct investments (FDI) into the European Union (EU) through the prism of the changing approaches to globalisation and to the economic role of the State. During the final decades of the twentieth century, European economies underwent a process of privatisation of state-owned-enterprises. The instruments adopted by numerous EU Member States to protect national interests in newly privatised economic sectors proved inconsistent with the free movement of capital and the freedom of establishment enshrined in EU law, as interpreted by the CJEU. The early years of this century were characterised by a rapid expansion of globalisation and an increase in foreign investment to and from the EU. In recent years, the resurgence of State prerogatives of economic sovereignty has led to a global reassessment of the potential security threats posed by FDI, such as the risk of weaponised dependencies in strategic sectors and critical industries. The ongoing change of approach bears consequences on the implementation of domestic investment policies and on the development of international investment law. At EU level, the adoption of Regulation (EU) 2019/452 can be considered a major legislative development in response to the EU’s supposed naïveté on the risks of FDI. The doctoral work reconstructs a comprehensive normative framework for FDI screening within the EU and international multi-level investment governance. It provides a theoretical contribution to evaluate the extent to which EU Member States can protect their security prerogatives by balancing the openness of the internal market to FDI with national and European economic security. It also proposes a normative interpretation of EU law which could lead to the progressive attribution of responsibilities to the European Commission in the area of FDI screening when European collective security interests are affected.