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On 11 December 2025 the Council of the EU presidency, the European Parliament, and the European Commission reached provisional political (trilogue) agreement on the revision of Regulation (EU) 2019/452 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union, concluding interinstitutional negotiations on the Commission's proposal of 24 January 2024. The revised regime upgrades the 2019 cooperation-mechanism-only framework into a hybrid harmonised/mandatory regime: all 27 Member States must establish FDI screening mechanisms (replacing the current patchwork in which some Member States have no mechanism at all); mandatory minimum sectoral scope is set EU-wide and covers dual-use items, military equipment, hyper-critical technologies (general-purpose AI with space/defence relevance, quantum technologies, semiconductors), critical raw materials, critical entities in energy/transport/digital infrastructure, electoral infrastructure, and certain financial-system entities; foreign investments routed through EU subsidiaries fall within the perimeter; a shared database prevents Member-State arbitrage; and an optional single electronic-filing portal becomes available if requested by at least nine Member States. Screening decisions remain the exclusive responsibility of the Member State in which the investment is made. Once the Regulation enters into force (after Council and Parliament formal adoption and OJ publication, both pending as of the political-agreement date), the new rules will apply after an 18-month transition period — implementation expected toward the end of 2027.

Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/63 of 15 January 2025, published in the Official Journal on 16 January 2025 (CELEX 32025H0063), is the first EU-level instrument operationalising outbound-investment screening. It is a legally non-binding act that asks Member States to designate a Single Contact Point and competent national authorities by 15 March 2025 and to review outbound transactions by EU investors into third countries in three strategic sectors — advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies — covering acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, greenfield investments, asset/IP transfers, and venture-capital instruments completed since 1 January 2021. Member States must submit an interim update by 15 July 2025 and a comprehensive report on review outcomes and identified risks by 30 June 2026, feeding into the EU's broader Economic Security Strategy and the binding outbound-investment legislative instrument the Commission has signalled for 2026-2027.

The Wet veiligheidstoets investeringen, fusies en overnames ("Vifo Act") is the Netherlands' cross-sector statutory FDI screening regime. Adopted by the States-General on 18 May 2022 (Stb. 2022, 215) and entered into force on 1 June 2023 together with two implementing decrees (Stb. 2023, 173 — main implementing decree; Stb. 2023, 172 — decree defining the scope of "sensitive technology"), the Act establishes mandatory pre-closing notification and a security review by the Bureau Toetsing Investeringen (BTI, part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate) for transactions affecting (i) "vital providers" in critical infrastructure sectors — energy, transport, telecoms, port operators, banking infrastructure — and (ii) Dutch undertakings active in "sensitive technology", defined to include EU Reg 2021/821 Annex I dual-use items, military goods, and additional national-security technologies. The regime applies retrospectively to transactions completed after 8 September 2020. It is the foundational instrument under which the Dutch national export-control measures on ASML DUV immersion lithography (filed: 2023-06-30 and 2024-09-07) operate, and the Dutch peer of US CFIUS, EU Regulation 2019/452, the German AWG §§55-62, the French Décret 2014-479 / R. 151-1 et seq., and the UK NSI Act 2021.