Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

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.

Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 of the European Parliament and of the Council on horizontal cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements, signed 23 October 2024 and entering into force 10 December 2024. The CRA is the first EU statutory cybersecurity regime covering all hardware and software products with a direct or indirect data connection placed on the EU market, imposing essential cybersecurity requirements, conformity assessment with CE marking, mandatory vulnerability handling, and 24-hour early-warning notification of actively-exploited vulnerabilities to ENISA. Main manufacturer obligations apply from 11 December 2027; conformity-assessment-body notification provisions apply from 11 June 2026 and reporting obligations from 11 September 2026. Penalties reach EUR 15M or 2.5% of global annual turnover.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1781, published in the Official Journal on 18 September 2023 and in force from 8 October 2023, establishes the EU Chips Act: a three-pillar framework targeting 20% of global semiconductor production by 2030 (up from approximately 9% in 2022) by mobilising EUR 43bn in public and private investment. Pillar 1 (Chips for Europe Initiative, EUR 3.3bn committed from EU budget) funds R&D, pilot production lines, and design infrastructure. Pillar 2 creates a fast-track permitting regime for "Integrated Production Facilities" (IPFs) and "Open EU Foundries" (OEFs) that qualify as being in the Union's interest. Pillar 3 establishes a supply-chain monitoring mechanism and grants the Commission power to mandate priority orders from designated facilities during a declared semiconductor crisis.