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This At a glance note summarises the study looking at Chinese investments in non-maritime transport infrastructure in the EU and EU Neighbourhood through the lens of ‘de-risking’ for the first time. It provides a comprehensive overview of Chinese investments in the European non-maritime transport infrastructure over the past two decades and weighs the associated risks. The study borrows the framework adopted by the National Risk Assessment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands 2022 for its risk assessment ...

This study looks at potential windfall profits for the four banking acquisitions in 2023. Based on accounting figures, an FT article states that a total of USD 44bn was left on the table. We see accounting figures as a misleading analysis. By estimating marked-based cumulative abnormal returns (CAR), we find positive abnormal returns in all four cases which when made quantifiable, are around half of the FT’s accounting figures. Furthermore, we argue that transparent auctions with enough bidders ...

This At a glance note sumarises the study for the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN) looking at Chinese investments in European Maritime Infrastructure through the lens of ‘de-risking’ for the first time. It provides a comprehensive overview of Chinese investments in the European maritime sector over the past two decades and weighs the associated risks. The study borrows the framework adopted by the National Risk Assessment of the Kingdom of the Netherlands 2022 for its ...

On 9 August 2023, US President Joe Biden issued an executive order to regulate certain types of US outbound investment in semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and artificial intelligence sectors in 'countries of concern', where this investment may be a threat to US national security. Investment in these technologies or subsets of them will be subject to notification rules, or prohibited. The US Treasury Department, tasked with drafting the implementation rules, concurrently ...

Public financing of enterprises, which has been on the rise globally, can have a distortive effect on competitive markets. In response to this trend, in May 2021 the European Commission published a proposal for a regulation to tackle foreign subsidies with a distortive effect on the EU single market. It would enable the Commission to investigate subsidies granted by non-EU public authorities to companies operating on the single market, and to apply countervailing measures, should these subsidies ...

China's full or partial ownership of a large number of strategic infrastructure assets in the European Union has significantly increased the EU's exposure to a non-EU country with a track record of weaponising its growing global economic footprint to achieve political objectives. Moreover, a series of recent cyber-attacks associated with Chinese hackers have put the EU's critical infrastructure at risk of compromise or espionage. Both developments highlight the need to protect the EU's strategic ...

There are major concerns in the EU in relation to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions associated with investor protection agreements. ISDS relies on a legal framework of arbitration that is separate from domestic courts. This analysis provides an overview of ISDS cases involving current EU Member States. The main finding is that, on average, nearly 16 % of claimed amounts translate into (known) compensation in cases involving current EU Member State respondents. Nearly a third ...

Distortive foreign subsidies

At a Glance 07-11-2022

Foreign state financing of companies can have distortive effects on the single market. In its first November plenary session, the Parliament will vote on the provisional agreement, reached in trilogue negotiations, on a proposed regulation to tackle such distortive foreign subsidies. Under the regulation, companies would need to notify subsidies granted by non-EU public authorities in areas of mergers and acquisitions and bids in big public procurements, and the Commission would have the right to ...

The six Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo,* Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) are all countries with substantial economic catch-up potential. The EU-led Berlin Process estimated an annual investment need of some €7.7 billion, which would provide the region with an additional 1 % GDP growth and a positive employment effect of up to 200 000 people. However, quality investments are scarce, or often attached to political, environmental and social conditionalities ...

The European Commission is currently negotiating a revision of the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). This revision would, inter alia, reform the ECT's investor–state dispute resolution mechanisms and explicitly allow countries to take regulatory actions affecting existing investments, for reasons such as environmental protection or climate action. The overarching objective is to ensure that the ECT is modernised in a way that would avoid the EU and its Member States deciding to withdraw from the ...