More European cooperation for screening of foreign investments

Member states must be able to exchange information more easily in order to screen foreign investors or parties seeking to make an acquisition in certain strategic sectors. Investments or acquisition attempts that form a serious risk for public order or security can in this way be prevented if necessary. The European Parliament today approved a legal framework that makes this possible. MEP Ralph Packet, member of the Committee on International Trade, responds with satisfaction: “The greatest asset of our economy is the openness with which we welcome investments from all parts of the world, but we must not be naïve.”

Balance between openness and protection

Not all investors come to Europe with good intentions. “Also in the field of foreign investments, an open border policy is a bad idea. We must find a healthy balance between openness and the protection of our strategic sectors,” says Ralph Packet.

Creating added value

Many European governments are becoming worried by the increasing number of acquisitions by Chinese or Russian companies. There threaten to be risks for national security if they were to gain access to precious information in sensitive sectors, such as defence or energy. “I welcome the new European screening framework, in which the EU above all plays a coordinating role. In this regard, the EU is focusing, as it should, on a task for which it can create added value as a result of its scale, without having to act in the place of individual member states in the matter,” Ralph Packet explains.

Screening foreign investments

This new European legislation must be a signal for our country too to examine foreign investments in strategic sectors more closely. “Only twelve member states today have a mechanism to screen foreign investments in their own country. Belgium is not one of them. It wasn’t so long ago that a Chinese company tried to buy a part of the former Eandis. The upshot of that was that, if there are strategic interests at stake, the Flemish Government today has the possibility of declining investors in bodies that are under its control,” Ralph Packet concludes.