While all major economic powers (including Australia, Canada, China, Japan, and the United States) have the capacity to control foreign direct investment (FDI), Europeans have only recently begun to coordinate to assess the risks posed by FDI into the Single Market. At present, only 12 European Union (EU) Member States have such mechanisms in place.

The political agreement of 20 November 2018 to create a European mechanism will come to a vote in the European Parliament and to a qualified majority vote in the Council in the spring of 2019. This is a decisive step in the right direction. In this brief, Elvire Fabry, senior research fellow at the Jacques Delors Institute, and Jacopo Maria D’Andria, research assistant at the Jacques Delors Institute, explain that for a more effective response, Europeans must acquire a better capacity to anticipate potential risks from FDI, including a common strategic perspective that must be put on the agenda of the next Commission.

You can consult the interactive map of Chinese investments in major EU transport infrastructure, 2004-2018 created by Elvire Fabry and Jacopo Maria D’Andria.