Experts from the Member States, meeting on Thursday 2 July in the Council of the EU ‘Competitiveness’ Working Party, will examine a final partial compromise prepared by the Cyprus Presidency on the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA).
This is the second compromise text, this time covering Chapter 4 and the contributions of foreign direct investments.
The scope of the article is unchanged and continues to apply to foreign direct investments with a value exceeding €100 million in the emerging strategic manufacturing sectors, where more than 40% of global manufacturing capacity is held by the third country of which the foreign investor is a national or undertaking.
However, the compromise appears to reduce the European Commission’s powers with regard to the assessment of the direct investment.
It may therefore decide to carry out the assessment of the foreign direct investment only “at the request of the Investment Authorities of three or more Member States, where the foreign direct investment in question would have a significant economic impact on their territories”, or at its own initiative, if that investment exceeds €1 billion or where the foreign direct investment is liable to seriously disrupt security of supply in the relevant emerging strategic sector or associated value chains in the Union.
The compromise also gives governments more time to designate an investment authority responsible for reviewing the foreign direct investment, namely six months after the entry into force of the regulation (instead of one month).
Link to the text: https://aeur.eu/f/mnq (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)