The positive perception of hosting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has been challenged by China’s increasing influence on European strategic assets and the lessons learned from the COVID-19 experience. In response to potential threats to national security, almost all European Union (EU) member states have taken steps to either strengthen existing Investment Screening Mechanisms (ISMs) or implement new ones. In this context, the research aims to provide a theoretical understanding of how member states make decisions regarding two fundamental dimensions of their ISMs: scope (broad/narrow) and threshold (high/low) drawn from the Politics and Regulation of Investment Screening Mechanisms (PRISM) dataset. Arising from these two dimensions, the research presents four different configurations of ISM that lead to varying degrees of autonomy. It introduces an analytical framework grounded in member states’ technological intensity and ownership structure. The central argument is that the technological intensity of member states and the type of ownership network embedded in their state-society relations are the two key variables that explain the variations in different investment screening models across EU member states. By scrutinising four different types closely and comparatively, this research highlights domestic political economy sources of variations in the design of ISM across the EU member states.

The academic literature lacks a detailed long-term analysis of Central and East European (CEE) exports of goods to and foreign direct investment (FDI) in Russia and a firm-level empirical investigation of these activities. Western sanctions and Russian countermeasures, especially those from 2022 onwards, have made this gap even more apparent. Although the Russian market constituted a small part of CEE exports of goods and outward FDI activity even in the pre-sanctions period, it has continued to be important for selected CEE export products and investor firms, which have been challenged by hurdles caused by these sanction regimes. In this paper, we assess how sanctions have affected Hungarian exports of goods to and investment presence in Russia and the performance of Hungarian firms involved in these transactions. In an effort to diversify its exports and reduce its dependence on EU markets, Hungary launched its Eastern Opening foreign policy just two years before the 2014 sanctions. It has also built a cordial political relationship with Russia. Although Hungary has voted in favour of sanctions against Russia, the Hungarian government has consistently expressed its opposition to these measures on the grounds of their negative effects on Hungarian economic performance. In this paper, in addition to providing information on exports of goods and FDI at the level of aggregated data, we identify the specific areas where sanctions have impacted Hungarian firms and look at the types of difficulties and opportunities they have faced. We also determine how individual Hungarian firms have responded to the new situation, and which firm-specific factors (i.e., the characteristics of the firms and their products and activities) influence firm performance and adaptation strategies. We use a mixed-methods approach, relying on both qualitative and quantitative methods, and integrating the insights of the institutional theory with the resource-based view and the resource-dependence theory in pursuit of interpreting sanctions and assessing the response strategies of firms to a new political and economic environment. Our data derive from aggregate and firm-level national statistics, corporate registers/databases, other sources of documentary research and our own questionnaires and interviews.

Post-Lisbon, the ratification of most international agreements by the EU requires the consent of the European Parliament (EP). Besides activating its veto power, the EP sometimes challenges the ratification of international agreements by delaying the consent procedure, by threatening to deny consent, or by a committee recommending to deny consent. However, such cases of ratification challenges are rare, as most international agreements are ratified by the EP without any contestation. Examining when the EP signals its contestation of the ratification, the paper asks: under which conditions does the EP challenge the ratification of international agreements? We conduct a crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) of 42 agreements subject to EP consent. Contrary to expectations, ratification challenges can occur in the absence of mediatization. By contrast, the presence of EP or stakeolder concerns about human rights, democracy and/or the rule of law, the relative economic impact of agreements and their impact on the agricultural and/or fisheries sector explain the occurrence of ratification challenges.