REVIEW OF THE FDI SCREENING REGIME
KEY CHANGES IN 2024–2025 AND THEIR IMPACT ON INVESTORS IN ROMANIA
REVIEW OF THE FDI SCREENING REGIME
KEY CHANGES IN 2024–2025 AND THEIR IMPACT ON INVESTORS IN ROMANIA
In the past year, both at the European and Romanian level, the screening of foreign direct investments has moved forward from normative text to applied practice and methodological clarifications. At EU level, a revision process was launched to harmonize and strengthen the assessment of economic and security risks. The European Parliament has adopted several key amendments to the European Commission’s proposal to revise EU Regulation 2019/452 on FDI screening, while the final trilogue negotiations (EP–EC–European Council) are still ongoing.
In Romania, following the implementation of the GEO no. 46/2022, the Competition Council issued in 2025 Operational Guidelines clarifying how to calculate investment value and to construe the notion of “control”. This comes after the Law no. 164/2023 having expressly extended the definition of “EU investment” to include investments made by Romanian companies.
“EU investor: a natural person who is a citizen of a Member State of the European Union and who has made or intends to make an investment in Romania. The category of EU investor also includes a natural person with Romanian citizenship, as well as a legal entity with its registered office in Romania having made or intending to make an investment in Romania” (Article 2 letter h, point 1 of GEO no. 46/2022).