Non-Paper No 11/2025: Powering Ahead – Investment Screening in Energy Technologies and Renewable Energy Production
Written by Tobias Pfeiffer, CFIS 25 Programme Sherpa.
This paper examines the critical intersection of investment screening and the European energy transition.
The shift to a renewables-based system has fundamentally expanded the concept of energy security, moving beyond traditional physical assets to encompass new vulnerabilities in supply chains and digital infrastructure. Policymakers face the dual imperative of mitigating strategic risks while simultaneously attracting the substantial foreign capital essential for the energy transition. The increasingly rigorous approach to national security reviews must be balanced against the critical role of investment in financing infrastructure and innovation. As a mitigation tool, the paper suggests that public-private coordination, facilitated through EU industrial alliances (such as the European Battery Alliance), should place a stronger emphasis on cooperation ahead of planned transactions. The paper further concludes that establishing a robust baseline of common EU rules while preserving flexibility under the revised FDI regulation is necessary to ensure investor predictability and safeguard the Union’s collective economic security interests.
