Toward a Multilevel System of Investment Control Oriented to Crisis Management: Italian Golden Power in the Framework of the EU FDI Screening Mechanism

This chapter analyses the ‘osmotic’ relationship between the parallel evolution of the Italian regulation on special powers and of the EU mechanism on FDI screening to verify the effectiveness of a multilevel system to protect national and EU security. It emerges that—moving on from the ‘golden shares’, aimed to maintain shares in privatized undertakings—the regulation on golden powers in Italy has assumed an increasingly strategic dimension, until attaining, in line with Regulation 2019/452, a crisis prevention and management function. This trend was accentuated during the Covid-19 emergency, when, to safeguard Italy’s ownership of undertakings, the Italian Government significantly strengthened its golden power rules, broadening their range of application to all EU and non-EU investments aiming to gain control over domestic strategic undertakings. In this light, the new golden power rules may be said to work simultaneously with other instruments, such as the ‘Patrimonio Rilancio’, which supports the ‘national champions’ or the nationalization of strategic undertakings (as Alitalia). The EU is also coupling FDI screening and direct intervention in the economy, which is increasing its directpurchase and production role, especially regarding goods essential for emergency response, such as medical countermeasures or semiconductors. This trend appears to have strengthened after Russia’s aggression on Ukraine, when blending control over foreign operations and direct public intervention in the economy appears as an effective means of crisis preparedness and management at the EU and Italian levels, one that can assure not only economic stability but also the security and welfare of citizens