Chinese Foreign Investments in the European Union Energy Sector: The Regulation of Security Concerns

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 375-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Bungenberg ◽  
Angshuman Hazarika
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Control Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Foreign Investments ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Eu Merger Control ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Considerable Concern ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Energy investments from China have been flowing into the European Union (EU) over the last decade at an increasing rate. Part of these investments are made under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and involve Chinese State-owned Enterprises (SOEs). This flow of investments into critical sectors such as energy infrastructure and generation has raised considerable concern over their potential national security implications and prompted the European Commission to prepare new legislation to screen foreign investments in critical sectors, including energy. The new EU regulations complement existing investment screening mechanisms in a number of EU member states, and the application of EU merger control law. This article looks at the different screening and clearance mechanisms which Chinese investments in the energy sector may have to pass in the EU and aims to show how these screening mechanisms are used in practice.

scholarly journals The European Union and China Foreign Direct Investment Cooperation in the Context of the Belt and Road Initiative

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-93
Author(s):  
D. Potapov
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Belt And Road Initiative ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
The Common ◽  
National Governments ◽  
The Belt And Road ◽  
The Eu

The article analyses the foreign direct investment cooperation between the European Union and the People’s Republic of China under the Belt and Road Initiative. The initiative is proposed by China and is aimed at developing cross-regional transport and logistics infrastructure connecting China with South-East, South and Central Asia, the Middle East, East Africa and Europe. The author examines the history of the initiative and its assessments by international organizations (e.g. the World Bank and the ESCAP UN) and investigates the structure and statistics of the EU-China investment relations, basing on the examples of the most important China’s investment partners (including France, Italy, Germany and the Vishegrad Group countries). The discrepancy between the conditions for the EU and the Chinese investors is highlighted. The author defines and characterizes the major models of the Belt and Road projects’ development, which are used by China in cooperation with the EU Member States. The EU investors in China face restrictions imposed by the national regulation of foreign investments. In particular, the external investors do not have access to the sectors crucially important for national interest and security (e.g. high-tech sectors and mass media). At the same time, Chinese investors’ access to the EU financial markets is not limited, allowing them to become important shareholders in the EU companies and to transfer technologies. It raises concerns within national governments and the European Union itself. The national governments are establishing and adopting screening mechanisms for foreign direct investments and additional regulations to control important sectors and enterprises. At the same time, the EU Member States are developing a common view on the prospects and mechanisms of cooperation with China under the Belt and Road initiative. The EU countries have not yet reached a consensus upon the Belt and Road initiative and the prospects of the EU participation in it, so the author focuses on the strategies of the examined countries. Germany is calling for a common position for all the EU member states and advocates for using the EU-based mechanisms and platforms for cooperation with China. Such demands are also connected with the promotion of a common EU investment screening mechanism in order to protect the Member States’ interests and security. Italy is deepening its cooperation with China through bilateral mechanisms, mainly based on a memorandum of understanding with China on the Belt and Road initiative. France, on the one hand, shares the common interest with Germany regarding the need for the common EU policy towards the Chinese initiative, but on the other hand, the country is deploying new projects with China. The Visegrad Group states are forging their ties with China through bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms and they are interested in the growth of Chinese investment inflows. This undermines the unanimity of policy towards China and the Belt and Road.

Political aspects of security of the European Union Member States

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-105
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Kusztykiewicz-Fedurek
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Political Security ◽  
New Institutions ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The Eu

Political security is very often considered through the prism of individual states. In the scholar literature in-depth analyses of this kind of security are rarely encountered in the context of international entities that these countries integrate. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to key aspects of political security in the European Union (EU) Member States. The EU as a supranational organisation, gathering Member States first, ensures the stability of the EU as a whole, and secondly, it ensures that Member States respect common values and principles. Additionally, the EU institutions focus on ensuring the proper functioning of the Eurozone (also called officially “euro area” in EU regulations). Actions that may have a negative impact on the level of the EU’s political security include the boycott of establishing new institutions conducive to the peaceful coexistence and development of states. These threats seem to have a significant impact on the situation in the EU in the face of the proposed (and not accepted by Member States not belonging to the Eurogroup) Eurozone reforms concerning, inter alia, appointment of the Minister of Economy and Finance and the creation of a new institution - the European Monetary Fund.

The Southern Gas Corridor infrastructure project – implications for the energy security of the European Union

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 79-99
Author(s):  
Justyna Misiągiewicz
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Caspian Region ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Energy Field ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Infrastructure Project ◽  
The Eu

Nowadays, energy security is a growing concern in state foreignpolicy. Interdependency in the energy field is a very important dimensionof contemporary relations between states and transnational corporations.Energy security is becoming a key issue for the European Union (EU). TheUnion is one of the world’s fastest-growing energy markets and the biggestimporter of energy resources. For the foreseeable future, Europe’s energydependence will probably increase. Facing a shortage of energy, Europe isdependent on imports and the EU member states need to diversify their energysupplies. The Caspian region contains some of the largest undevelopedoil and gas reserves in the world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, thenewly independent Caspian states became open to foreign investment. Thegrowing energy needs have given the EU a strong interest in developing tieswith energy-producing states in the Caspian region to build the necessarypipeline infrastructure. In this analysis, the pipeline infrastructure that exists orwill be built in the near future will be presented. The analysis will concentrateon routes transporting gas from the Caspian region and the most importantproblems and solutions in designing the midstream energy system in the region.The key aim of the article is to analyse the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC)infrastructure project, which will inevitably contribute to the EU’s energy securityinterest.

Front-of-pack nutrition labelling in the European Union: a behavioural, legal and political analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Vincent DELHOMME
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Dietary Habits ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Nutrition Labelling ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Legislative Proposal ◽  
The Eu

Amidst a growing interest from European Union (EU) Member States, the European Commission recently announced that it would put forward a legislative proposal for the adoption of a harmonised and mandatory front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme at the EU level. The present contribution discusses the implications of such an adoption, taking a behavioural, legal and policy angle. It introduces first the concept of front-of-pack nutrition labelling and the existing evidence regarding its effects on consumer behaviour and dietary habits. It then presents the legal framework currently applicable to (front-of-pack) nutrition labelling in the EU and discusses some of the main political and practical aspects involved with the development of a common EU front-of-pack label.

scholarly journals Crisis and Intergovernmental Retrenchment in the European Union? Framing the EU’s Answer to the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenio Salvati
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Institutional Capacity ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Political Integration ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Core State ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Supranational Institutions ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has placed severe pressure on the EU’s capacity to provide a timely and coordinated response capable of curbing the pandemic’s disastrous economic and social effects on EU member states. In this situation, the supranational institutions and their models of action are evidently under pressure, seeming incapable of leading the EU out of the stormy waters of the present crisis. The article frames the first months of management of the COVID-19 crisis at EU level as characterised by the limited increase in the level of steering capacity by supranational institutions, due to the reaffirmed centrality of the intergovernmental option. To explain this situation, the article considers the absence of the institutional capacity/legitimacy to extract resources from society(ies), and the subsequent impossibility of guaranteeing an effective and autonomous process of political (re)distribution, the key factors accounting for the weakness of vertical political integration in the response to the COVID-19 challenge. This explains why during the COVID-19 crisis as well, the pattern followed by the EU is rather similar to past patterns, thus confirming that this has fed retrenchment aimed at the enforcement of the intergovernmental model and the defence of the most sensitive core state powers against inference from supranational EU institutions.

International Aspects of Investment Liberalization in the PRC: A Case of EU-China Cooperation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 190-224
Author(s):  
D. A. Potapov
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Investment ◽  
World Order ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Foreign Investments ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
International Aspects ◽  
The Eu

The paper examines the role of investment cooperation and national foreign investment regime as a means to promote China’s economic and political interests and to respond to new global challenges that the country faces nowadays. To this end, the author examines the main stages of China’s liberalization of the legal regime for foreign investment from the end of the 1970s with a special focus on a new foreign investment law. In doing so the author attempts to link the evolution of investment regulation in the PRC with the dynamics of international relations development and the changing role of China as a regional and global actor. The author emphasizes that a trend towards the emergence of a polycentric world order not only provokes the rise of international tensions but also provides new incentives to promote dialogue and enhance cooperation between states and non-governmental actors, particularly by encouraging foreign investments. At the same time, there is a growing need to improve regulatory mechanisms for direct foreign investments. All these contradictory trends have directly affected China’s foreign investment regime reform. In this context the investment cooperation between the PRC and the European Union is of particular importance. The EU possesses a set of innovative technological solutions and competencies that are of particular interest to the Chinese leaders in the context of their efforts to modernize the country’s economy. The paper examines the volume, dynamics and key directions of investment flows between China and the EU member-states. The fact that after seven years of difficult negotiations, the EU and China managed to develop a special bilateral regulatory mechanism — EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment — underscores again the importance of this cooperation for both parties. Even though the EU has suspended the ratification of this deal on the pretext of human right violations in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the author concludes, that in the future this agreement will come into force, since the very logic of the emerging polycentric world order urges for deeper cooperation between the EU and China. In this context, the investment regulation appears not only as a means to protect the Chinese economic interests, but also as an instrument to strengthen China’s international positions in the changing global context.

TRENDS IN THE FORMATION OF POLAND'S ENERGY POLICY IN THE FUEL AND ENERGY SECTOR OF THE EU COUNTRIES

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (11) ◽  
pp. 167-173
Author(s):  
Mihail V. Rybin ◽  
◽  
Alexander A. Stepanov ◽  
Nadezhda V. Morozova ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Energy Policy ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Regional Programs ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Fuel And Energy Sector

The article reveals and analyzes conceptual approaches to the formation of strategic directions of energy policy of the European Union and Poland in the first decades of the XXI century. A critical assess-ment is given from the point of view of international cooperation in the field of energy between the Russian Federation, Poland and the EU as a whole and, in particular, European, national and regional programs for the transformation of the fuel and energy sector in the conditions of decarbonization and transition to green energy.

Practice of the member states of the European Union in the field of anti-corruption regulation

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmytro S. Melnyk ◽  
Oleg A. Parfylo ◽  
Oleksii V. Butenko ◽  
Olena V. Tykhonova ◽  
Volodymyr O. Zarosylo
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
System Analysis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Member States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Legal Method ◽  
Content Analysis Method ◽  
The Eu

Purpose The experience of most European Union (EU) Member States has demonstrated effective anti-corruption practices, making the EU one of the leaders in this field, which can be used as an example to learn from in the field of anti-corruption. The purpose of this study is to analyze and identify the main features of anti-corruption legislation and strategies to prevent corruption at the national and supranational levels of the EU. Design/methodology/approach The following methods were used in the work: discourse and content analysis, method of system analysis, method of induction and deduction, historical-legal method, formal-legal method, comparative-legal method and others. Using the historical and legal method, the evolution of the formation of anti-corruption regulation at the supranational level was revealed. The comparative law method helped to compare the practices of the Member States of the EU in the field of anti-corruption regulation. The formal-legal method is used for generalization, classification and systematization of research results, as well as for the correct presentation of these results. Findings The main results, prospects for further research and the value of the material. The paper offers a critical review of key EU legal instruments on corruption, from the first initiatives taken in the mid-1990s to recent years. Originality/value In addition, the article analyzes the relevant anti-corruption legislation in the EU member states that are in the top 10 countries with the lowest level of corruption, namely: Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg.

Staatsklimahaftung

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabell Böhm
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
European Union ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
State Liability ◽  
Liability Claims ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Made In

Climate change litigation is becoming increasingly important. This thesis deals with the question whether state liability claims against Germany or the EU can be justified, if commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not met. For this purpose, the claim under public liability according to § 839 German Civil Code in connection with Art. 34 German Basic Law, the liability of the EU-Member States and the liability of the European Union according to Art. 340 II TFEU are discussed. At the end of the thesis, considerations on the practical perspectives of state liability are made in order to improve their prospects of success.

Turkey and Europe: The Role of Migration

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-399
Author(s):  
Pieter Emmer
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Full Member ◽  
Turkish Immigrants ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Eu

In spite of the fact that negotiations have been going on for years, the chances that Turkey will eventually become a full member of the European Union are slim. At present, a political majority among the EU-member states headed by Germany seems to oppose Turkey entering the EU. In the Netherlands, however, most political parties are still in favour of Turkey's membership. That difference coincides with the difference in the position of Turkish immigrants in German and Dutch societies.

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