Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 28 January 2026 the European Commission's CINEA agency allocated a EUR 180.03 million grant to Repsol Generación Electrica SA under the 2025 Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Energy call, funding the "Construction of the Reversible Pumped-Storage Hydroelectric Power Plant AGUAYO II" Project of Common and Mutual Interest in Cantabria, Spain. It was the single largest individual allocation of the round and the only pumped-storage project among the 14 cross-border energy infrastructure projects sharing roughly EUR 650 million from the same call. AGUAYO II will support electricity system flexibility and renewable-energy integration; CINEA states it will reduce curtailment of renewable output by an estimated 1,438 GWh/year (about 7.3% of Spain's total curtailed renewables) and cut CO2 emissions by roughly 566,000 tonnes/year by displacing two nearby combined-cycle gas plants. CINEA formally awarded the grant certificate for the project on 21-22 May 2026 at the 12th Energy Infrastructure Forum in Copenhagen. Commissioning is targeted for 31 December 2030.

On October 22, 2025, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Open Joint Stock Company Rosneft Oil Company ("Rosneft") and Lukoil OAO ("Lukoil") — together with dozens of named Russia-based subsidiaries — to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List under Executive Order 14024 for "operating or having operated in the energy sector of the Russian Federation economy." It is the first US designation of Russia's two largest integrated oil majors since the 2022 invasion-era sanctions architecture began. Under OFAC's 50% Rule, the blocking extends automatically to all entities owned 50% or more, directly or indirectly, by Rosneft or Lukoil — capturing a sprawling global subsidiary network including Lukoil retail/refining assets in Belgium, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Finland, the West Qurna-2 upstream stake in Iraq, and Lukoil Americas. Rosneft and Lukoil together account for roughly half of Russian crude exports (~5 mb/d combined production) and Lukoil holds a ~9% European retail-fuel market share. OFAC simultaneously issued General License 124 (Caspian Pipeline Consortium / Tengizchevroil / Karachaganak Kazakhstan-pipeline carve-out, no expiry), General License 125 (Lukoil retail service stations outside Russia, wind-down to November 21, 2025), General License 126 (general wind-down to November 21, 2025) and General License 127 (debt/equity divestment and derivatives wind-down to November 21, 2025). GL 131 (issued November 14, 2025) opened a divestment window for Lukoil International GmbH; subsequent GL 134/134A/134B extended cargo-offload authorisations through April–May 2026. The action was coordinated same-day with UK OFSI Rosneft/Lukoil designations and the EU's 19th Russia sanctions package adopted October 23, 2025 — the first major US-led Russia-energy escalation under the second Trump administration.

Spain's comprehensive 2023 implementing regulation of Law 19/2003, of 4 July, on the legal regime of capital movements and economic transactions with the exterior. Adopted as Real Decreto 571/2023 of 4 July 2023, published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado on 5 July 2023 (BOE-A-2023-15549), and in force from 1 September 2023. The Decree repeals the predecessor Royal Decree 664/1999 of 23 April on foreign investments, updates the declaration regime to reflect twenty years of practice and capital-market innovation, and operationalises the Article 7-bis horizontal FDI-screening mechanism that the 2020 COVID-emergency reforms (RDL 8/2020 and RDL 11/2020) inserted into Law 19/2003. It introduces a binding consultation regime (consulta vinculante), reduces the screening review period to three months, refines the catalogue of sensitive sectors (defence, dual-use, critical technologies, critical infrastructure, critical inputs, media, electoral process, access to sensitive information, and activities affecting public security, health and order), and codifies notification thresholds for non-EU/EFTA investors (>10% control or material influence; minimum transaction values of EUR 5 million / EUR 1 million for certain sectors).

Loi n° 22-18 du 24 juillet 2022 relative à l'investissement (Journal Officiel de la République Algérienne n° 50 du 28 juillet 2022) is Algeria's first comprehensive investment-code overhaul since Ordonnance 01-03 du 20 août 2001 and its 2016 Loi 16-09 amendment. The law replaces the legacy framework, codifies a liberalised FDI regime — retaining 51% Algerian-equity floors only for strategic sectors (hydrocarbons extraction, mining extraction, military/security) — creates the Agence Algérienne de Promotion de l'Investissement (AAPI) as the new single-window FDI-promotion agency and the Conseil National de l'Investissement (CNI) chaired by the Premier Ministre, and defines three investment regimes: Régime des Secteurs, Régime des Zones (Sud + Hauts-Plateaux territorial incentives), and the Régime Structurant for large-scale strategic projects ≥ DZD 2bn (~USD 15M) that attract negotiated multi-pillar fiscal, customs, parafiscal, and social-contribution incentive packages. Eight implementing décrets exécutifs n° 22-296 through 22-303 were published in JORADP n° 60 du 18 septembre 2022, operationalising governance, incentive matrices, the digital Registre National des Investissements, and dispute-resolution architecture.

Venezuela's Constitutional Anti-Blockade Law, adopted by the National Constituent Assembly on 8 October 2020 and published in Gaceta Oficial Extraordinaria N° 6.583 on 12 October 2020, establishes a "special and temporary" horizontal legal framework empowering the Executive Branch to suspend or derogate any law of the Republic when necessary to counteract the effects of unilateral coercive measures imposed against Venezuela (Article 19 — the broadest sanctions- countermeasure derogation authority in the Western Hemisphere). The law also creates the Centro Internacional de Inversión Productiva (CIIP), a special-jurisdiction FDI vehicle empowered to negotiate confidentially with foreign investors, conduct asset-protection mechanisms, and operate entirely outside ordinary public-procurement, accounting, and FX-control law. Constitutes the foundational parent statute for the VE counter-sanctions legal corpus and closes the VE=0 gap on the action register.