By Ruairi Harrison

As conversations around the globe concerning the issue of online disinformation gather gravity and frequency, it is tempting to view disinformation as a 21^st century problem. Yet this phenomenon can be traced back to Octavian’s grappling for power in the turbulent post-Caesar Civil War period. Here, the first Roman Emperor manipulated information concerning his first adversary, Marcus Antonius, using brief rhetorical notes engraved on coins and circulated around Rome. These notes painted his rival as a drunk, a womaniser and a headstrong soldier incapable of ruling an empire. They ultimately proved their effectiveness in gaining the public’s support and their simple, accessible form and message could be compared to a modern day ‘Tweet’. Think Trump calling the mail-in ballot system into disrepute in a series of easy-to-read tweets devoid of evidence. 

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By Thomas Verellen

Covid-19 represents a shock to global capital flows. As companies see the value of their assets tumble, they may become attractive targets to foreign investors – in particular, state-backed foreign investors less exposed to the economic fallout of the pandemic. To address what has been described as ‘opportunistic investment behaviour’ and – less euphemistically – ‘predatory buying’ practices, jurisdictions with well-established foreign investment screening mechanisms such as Australia and Canada have tightened scrutiny: the Australian government has reduced the value threshold for screening of all foreign investments to zero dollars, and the government of Canada has announced it will subject public health related investments and all investments by state-owned investors, regardless of their sector of activity, to enhanced scrutiny. 

For the European Union, Covid-19 came at an interesting time. The EU recently introduced its own FDI screening framework – a mechanism which leaves the ultimate decision-making power over individual investments with Member State screening authorities, but which sets up a framework for cooperation between EU and Member State authorities. The framework will go live on 11 October 2020 and thus was not operational when the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020. Against this backdrop, this blog post explores how the EU has responded to the Covid-19 crisis and in particular to the aforementioned risk of predatory buying that flows from the pandemic’s impact on asset prices. Given the multi-level set up of the EU’s approach to FDI screening, an analysis of the EU response to this risk needs to take into account developments at both the EU and Member State levels. This blog post focusses on the EU side of the equation. 

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By Sybe de Vries

Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral (Bertold Brecht, 1928)

During these almost surreal weeks questions were frequently raised in the media and in politics why the EU Member States (and globally) have adopted different measures and strategies to contain the spread of the Corona virus. Especially within the context of the EU one may have expected a common approach to fight Covid-19. On the contrary, some even argued that Corona rather reveals the relatively poor status of European cooperation.

The problem in Europe is that the field of health is in principle a matter for the Member States. In most cases the EU could only adopt supportive action.  Whereas paragraph 1 of Article 168 TFEU reiterates that a high level of health protection shall be ensured in the definition and implementation of all Union policies and activities, paragraphs 5 and 7 stipulate that harmonisation of national laws to protect and improve human health is excluded, and that management, organisation and delivery of medical care and health services are a matter and responsibility for the Member States. In other words, according to Article 6 TFEU, the protection and improvement of human health belongs to the EU’s supplementary competences.

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