The EU’s Competence over Cross-Border Investment in the Post-Lisbon Era

The EU’s Competence over Cross-Border Investment
in the Post-Lisbon Era

Konstantina Georgaki

Attorney-at-Law, LL.B., LL.M., LL.M. (UoA), LL.M. (Cantab), MSt (Oxon),
DPhil in Law Candidate, University of Oxford

This article addresses the EU’s competence over cross-border investment in the post-Lisbon era. In 2009, the Lisbon Treaty placed Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) within the broadened framework of the Common Commercial Policy under Article 207(1) TFEU, thus introducing the EU’s exclusive competence thereon. Against that background, the article comprises two parts; the first part sets out how the EU’s competence over the regulation of cross-border investment had evolved before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, whereas the second part goes on to examine its current status; in that, it explains, first, what constitutes FDI falling within the EU’s exclusive competence under Article 207(1) TFEU and how another type of (non-direct) investment, namely portfolio investment, is to be regulated; and secondly, whether the EU’s competence under Article 207(1) TFEU extends to cover both extra-EU and intra-EU direct investment.