Review of foreign investments in the EU

The EU Parliament has approved new rules for reviewing foreign investments in strategically important areas of the European Union. The aim of the planned regulations is to better identify and limit security risks and possible threats to public order. In the future, investments from non-EU countries in sensitive areas such as defense, semiconductors, AI, critical raw materials and financial services will be subject to mandatory review. Member States should assess whether this creates risks for important technologies, infrastructure or supply chains. At the same time, the testing procedures should be simplified and cooperation between national authorities and the EU Commission improved in order to be able to react more quickly to security risks. The EU emphasizes that it will remain open to foreign investment. The background is the reform of the EU rules for foreign direct investments that have been in force since 2020. In the EU's view, events such as the corona pandemic, the Ukraine war and increasing geopolitical tensions have shown that critical economic sectors need to be better protected. The EU Commission therefore proposed stricter rules at the beginning of 2024. Attention: The voting results shown on the right only reflect the voting behavior of the 96 German MEPs and not that of all 720 MEPs. The new regulations were approved overall with 508 votes in favour, 64 against and 90 abstentions. Of the German MEPs, 72 voted for and 14 against. There were four abstentions.

Vote breakdown