CELIS-Blog
Can – and should – the EU align with US economic security policy?
Varg Folkman (Policy Analyst, the European Policy Centre) Introduction Back during Europe’s summer of discontent in 2025, it went somewhat overlooked – amidst the larger trade story – that the EU, in its Turnberry Deal with the United States, had promised to “strengthen economic security alignment” between the two entities. The deal itself ended the…
Read More ...Investment Screening and the Nexperia Crisis: Would It Have Made a Difference?
Author: Frans-Paul van der Putten (Founder, ChinaGeopolitics) Introduction Five months have passed since the interventions by the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs and the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal that took away control of Dutch chipmaker Nexperia from its Chinese parent company Wingtech Technologies. Looking back at what happened, now that the…
Read More ...Ukraine’s Interagency FDI Commission: Early Powers in a Yet-to-Be-Defined FDI Screening Regime
Igor Svechkar (Partner, Asters), Sergiy Glushchenko (Counsel, Asters), and Anastasiia Panchak (Senior Associate, Asters; CELIS Country Reporter for Ukraine) Introduction On 28 January 2026, the Ukrainian Government (‘the Government’) adopted Resolution No. 97 (‘the Resolution’), establishing an Interagency Foreign Direct Investment Screening Commission (‘the Commission’). This step marks a further move toward the development of…
Read More ...FDI Screening in Ukraine: Balancing Security, Predictability, and Investment
Reflections from a CELIS and CIPE event in Washington, DC Anton Arkhypov (Counsel, AVELLUM) Introduction Ukraine’s reconstruction will depend heavily on foreign investment. At the same time, the country faces an unprecedented challenge: how to attract capital, technology, and partnerships without compromising national security in an environment shaped by war, geopolitical fragmentation, and global supply-chain realignment.…
Read More ...CELIS Update on Investment Screening and Economic Security – January 2026
By Helene Schramm with the help of intern Maria-Arancha Simiuc INVESTMENT SCREENING MECHANISMS United States – Washington Targets Sensitive Tech Investment Abroad Under New COINS Act On 18 December 2025, the Comprehensive Outbound Investment National Security (COINS) Act 2025 was signed into law as part of the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. The Act requires enforcement by the Department…
Read More ...Economic Security and the Financial Sector: Italian FDI Legislation Reformed to Cope with the EU Commission Infringement Procedure
By Andrea Gemmi and Linda Lorenzon Introduction The opening of infringement procedure INFR(2025)2152 concerning Italy’s FDI screening legislation (so-called “golden power” legislation) —following its application to the UniCredit/Banco BPM transaction—has brought to the surface unresolved tensions between national FDI controls and EU competences in banking supervision, prudential regulation, and free movement of capital. The European Commission’s…
Read More ...The Guidelines on the Foreign Subsidies Regulation: condensing the Commission’s first experience
Pierfrancesco Mattiolo (PhD Candidate, University of Antwerp) and Jan Blockx (Assistant Professor, University of Antwerp) On 9 January 2026, the Commission adopted its Guidelines on the application of certain provisions of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR). This publication follows the publication of the Draft Guidelines in July 2025 and increasing enforcement action at the end…
Read More ...Can Transatlantic Dialogue Smooth the Path for Investment in Western Defense?
Introduction Recent shifts in global security have thrust foreign direct investment (FDI) in the defense sector back into the spotlight. A closed-door CELIS Salon, convened policymakers, practitioners, and industry voices in Washington DC on the 13th of January to take stock of how transatlantic investors can navigate the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) while still bolstering European defense capabilities. Although the conversation…
Read More ...Why Economic Security Depends on Bureaucracy: The Hidden Side of Derisking
Authors: M. Di Giulio (Associate Professor, Università di Genova), F. Baraldi (Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), and M. Sguazzini (Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Università di Genova) This blog is part of the CELIS-L&G special series. All articles in Law & Geoeconomics are available free of charge via Brill using the access token LGEO4U until 31 December 2026. More details…
Read More ...Looking back at 2025 and raising our glass to 2026!
We hope that 2026 has gotten off to a good start for you. We wish it to be a year filled with happiness, success, and, most importantly, peace! While we are looking towards the future, we first take a moment to look back at the past year. 2025 was a tumultuous one, characterised by trade…
Read More ...Taking Certainty Seriously: the Italian Council of State Overturns the Practice of the National FDI Authority
Author: Andrea Gemmi (BonelliErede, Associate; University of Padova, PhD Candidate) Introduction The recent ruling of the Italian Council of State on the Cedacri case marks a turning point in the interpretation of the national FDI screening regime. This judgment reinforces the principle of legal certainty, challenging years of expansive administrative practice aimed at maximizing preventive…
Read More ...Proxies, Partners, or Opponents? Rethinking Business–Government Relations in Geoeconomic Competition
Authors: Olivier Schmitt (Royal Danish Defence College), Anna Vlasiuk Nibe (University of Southern Denmark) All articles in Law & Geoeconomics are available free of charge via Brill using the access token LGEO4U until 31 December 2026. More details are available at the L&G page here. Introduction: From Liberalisation to Interventionism Over the past decade, regulatory practices in Western economies have…
Read More ...CELIS Update on Investment Screening and Economic Security – December 2025
By Helene Schramm with the help of intern Maria-Arancha Simiuc INVESTMENT SCREENING MECHANISMS Switzerland – Swiss Parliament adopts Investment Screening Act On 2 December 2025, the Swiss parliament approved an Investment Screening Act. The regime has a highly limited scope and applies only to investments made by foreign states. The law is subject to a…
Read More ...The Elephant in the Room: Subsidiarity in Investment Screening in the EU
Part 5 in the CELIS blogseries on the revision of FDI Screening Regulation 2019/45 Authors: Andrew Hill (AmCham EU[1]), and Floor Doppen (University of Antwerp) Introduction White smoke poured over Brussels on December 11th as the European Commission, Council and Parliament reached agreement on the Foreign Investment Screening Regulation (the ‘Regulation’). Over the past few…
Read More ...Building Trust, Not Barriers: Ukraine’s Path to Effective FDI Screening
By Mykyta Nota (AVELLUM, Partner), Anton Arkhypov (AVELLUM, Counsel), Mariia Bykova (AVELLUM, Associate) To most foreigners, Ukraine is the ‘breadbasket of Europe’ – a land of rich soil where nearly half of all exports come from agriculture. The full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 turned that image on its head, underscoring the country’s engineering strength, industrial…
Read More ...The “Shifting Balance” of the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR). Some Preliminary Considerations on the ADNOC/Covestro Case and the Regulation’s Balancing Test
By Lena Hornkohl (University of Vienna) and Pierfrancesco Mattiolo (University of Antwerp) The central purpose of the EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) is clear: to tackle distortions in the internal market caused by subsidies granted by non-EU states. But what if these subsidy-fuelled activities not only distort but also create positive effects? How should they…
Read More ...Is the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation Delivering on Its Promise After Two Years of Implementation?
By Marina Maccagno (Senior Manager EU & Competition Law, PwC Legal Italy) The EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) has now been in force for over two years, and its implementation has proven to be quite challenging. As the dust settles, the question remains: is the FSR truly delivering on its promise of a level playing…
Read More ...New guidance on the interpretation of Austrian investment control rules
By Johannes Barbist, Binder Grösswang, Regina Kröll, Binder Grösswang and Armin Nimmrichter, Binder Grösswang More than five years after the Federal Act on the Control of Foreign Direct Investments (Investment Control Act – ICA) came into force, the Federal Ministry for Economy, Energy and Tourism (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, Energie und Tourismus – “BMWET”) has published new information on its website (only available in German) on the interpretation of the ICA. While the FAQs previously provided by the BMWET were very concise and focused…
Read More ...FDI Screening in Sweden: Broad Ambitions, Burdensome Reality
by Helene Andersson (Advokatfirman Delphi) and Elisabeth Eklund (Advokatfirman Delphi) On 1 December 2023, Sweden introduced a new foreign direct investment (FDI) screening regime, a landmark reform aligning Sweden with the broader EU framework for investment control. The system empowers the Swedish screening authority to block or impose conditions on acquisitions by non-EU actors…
Read More ...Introducing: the CELIS-L&G Blogseries
Welcome, readers, to the inaugural blog post of a new collaboration between the academic journal Law & Geoeconomics (L&G) and the CELIS Institute. To set the tone, we decided to sit down with some of the guiding minds behind this new series to better understand developments in geoeconomics and economic security, and to explore why…
Read More ...The long-awaited Republic of Cyprus’ FDI Screening Law is here
By Pantelis Christofides and Dr. Thomas Papadopoulos Background Details Further to the unanimous voting in favour of the FDI Screening Bill by the Plenary of the House of Representatives, the Legislative Body of the Republic of Cyprus, in the Session on the 30th of October 2025[1], the Establishment of Framework for the Foreign Direct…
Read More ...Five Key Points on FDI Screening in the EU Defence Sector
By James Marshall, Laurie-Anne Grelier and Romain Girard The war in Ukraine, and other recent geopolitical conflicts, have underscored the need for EU-based defence capabilities to scale up to face these challenges. Several EU initiatives which have sought to stimulate investment are starting to bear fruit, as the European Defence Agency recently reported record…
Read More ...CELIS Update on Investment Screening and Economic Security – November 2025
By Helene Schramm with the help of intern Maria-Arancha Simiuc INVESTMENT SCREENING MECHANISMS Cyprus – Cyprus Adopts First Comprehensive FDI Screening Law The Republic of Cyprus has enacted its first comprehensive Foreign Direct Investment Screening Law on 14 November 2025, entering into force on 2 April 2026. The new framework introduces mandatory prior…
Read More ...Balancing Investment Openness and National Security: FDI Screening in Israel and Insights for International Practice
By Igor Klotsman 1. INTRODUCTION Foreign direct investment (FDI) plays a significant role in shaping the economic and strategic landscape of host countries, generating both growth opportunities and potential vulnerabilities. On one hand, it provides capital, facilitates technology transfer, enhances productivity, and integrates domestic markets into global value chains. On the other hand, certain…
Read More ...The Devil is in the Details – The Real Screening Report
Part 4 in the CELIS blogseries on the revision of FDI Screening Regulation 2019/452. Authors: Floor Doppen (University of Antwerp), Andrew Hill (AmCham EU, Brussels) Introduction The Commission published its 5th Annual Report on FDI Screening on October 14th (‘the Report’). This report is eagerly awaited every year by many stakeholders as a major source of…
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