Foreign Direct Investment and Competition Policy after the Franco-German Manifesto. Embedding Political Dissent in Law

Abstract or Introduction

This thesis examines the European paradigm shift (i.e., from unconditional openness to foreign direct investment to the statement “we are not naive free traders” pronounced by the former President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker) toward the concerns raised by the Franco-German Manifesto and the subsequent interventions of European legislator. The research will focus on the new Foreign Direct Investments Screening Regulation and Cybersecurity Regulation. Furthermore, this thesis addresses a final proposal for a regulation to address state aid from non-European countries, as well as prospects for amending European competition law to meet Member States' desire to create "national and European champions".

Globalization, the development of new technologies and the recent COVID-19 pandemic crisis prompted the reopening of old issues in the European Union concerning the demand for protection and the interplay between industrial policy and European competition law. To preserve the internal market, sovereignty and the future economic independence of Europe, unified and strategic European thinking is required. In this vein, Germany and France formulated an industrial policy proposal to induce the European Union to amend its rules on the subject, now perceived as 'outdated' when confronted with increasingly fierce industrial competition from the Asian powers and the United States. This understanding, labelled as the Franco-German Manifesto, illustrates Member States' concerns on the need for new European defence tools for technologies, companies and the European market, along with the reform of the current regulatory framework to enable European companies to compete globally.

The analysis performed in this thesis thus investigates the rationale underpinning the new regulations and their approach to the critical issues highlighted by the Member States. The scrutiny of the mentioned regulations will concentrate on their effectiveness in countering risks related to (i) foreign acquisition of strategic assets, (ii) new technologies, and (iii) distortions of the internal market due to the lack of a global level playing field, will lead this thesis to argue in favour of further action by the legislator.