Abstract

This chapter provides a tour d’horizon of the development of the EU’s investment policy and is intended as an introduction for the subsequent chapters. The first part tracks the scope of the EU’s competence regarding foreign direct investments and the investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) system as it has been developed in particular by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). The second part analyses the tension of investment law and EU law regarding the intra-EU BITs and the Achmea judgment of the CJEU. The question is then discussed whether, and if so, to what extent the internal market provisions of the EU Treaties already provide a sufficient level of investment protection. The third main part focuses on the EU’s recent external investment policy as illustrated by the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada as well as the EU’s ISDS reform efforts within UNCITRAL Working Group III.