The Art of Casting Political Dissent in Law: The EU’s Framework for Screening of Foreign Direct Investment

This paper describes and analyses the EU Regulation establishing a framework for the screen-ing of foreign direct investments (FDI) into the Union. The negotiations that preceded the adoption of the Regulation have been characterized by greatly divergent Member States’ views on the proper use of FDI screening. Under such conditions, the Regulation’s framework for administrative cooperation and information sharing was as much as the Commission could hope for. The main challenge going forward lies in balancing the policy priorities of individu-al Member States’ to determine what constitutes a threat to security and public order, with the needs of the collective, that is the EU. In that respect, the indicative criteria set out in the Regulation may initiate a drive towards a rough consensus. While any ambition to fully har-monize FDI screening has been developed into a long-term goal, this paper finds that the Regulation establishes a nascent EU screening mechanism, although a well-camouflaged one.