Protecting European assets at a time of crisis

With the outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe, fears have grown that “Europe is for sale” to foreign investors and that the continent may lose its capacity to stand on its own legs. In our “What the Chief Says” event, Maria Martin-Prat, Director of Services and Investment, Intellectual Property and Public Procurement in the European Commission Directorate-General for Trade, has made the case for the importance of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Europe as long as it does not endanger the public order and security in any Member State and the Union as a whole.

Throughout the discussion, Prat highlighted that the EU’s very open economy heavily relies on FDI not only for job creation, but also for innovation and competition— and contrary to what is widely believed, it is the USA, not China, which spends trillions of dollars in Europe each year. In order to support Europe’s economic recovery, it will be essential that foreign investors continue to “go shopping in Europe”. With the Commission’s guidelines on the protection of critical European assets and technology ahead of the full implementation of the European FDI Screening Regulation scheduled for October 2020, the Commission, however, wants to ensure that there are clear limits to the shopping list of foreign investors.