In June 2023, the European Commission proposed reforming its foreign direct investment screening rules to achieve more effective economic security without jeopardizing the EU's competitiveness and attractiveness to investors. To underline the urgency of building a sustainable institutional framework for financial security, the Center for the Study of Democracy and the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), Washington DC, organized the policy forum “Economic Security and Investment Screening”, held on March 28 in Sofia.
The discussion was attended by policy makers and business representatives. Among the key participants were Kenneth Merten, U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria; Alexander Ivanov, Deputy Chairman of the Economic Policy and Innovation Committee at the National Assembly; Stanislav Anastasov, European Union Affairs Committee at the National Assembly; Bogdan Bogdanov, Minister of Economy and Industry, Rumiana Bachvarova, Deputy Prime Minister for Coalition Policy and Public Administration (2014–2017), Ilia Krastev, Chairman of the Managing Board of the Association for Innovation, Business Services and Technology (AIBEST) and Nicola Yankov, Managing Partner at ExpatCapital.
Ambassador Merten emphasized that Bulgaria and the United States should deepen and diversify their economic ties to protect their energy security and, thus, their national security. Ruslan Stefanov, Program Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, noted that over the past two years massive loopholes in implementing the sanctions regime, especially in the energy sector, have come to the fore . Alexander Ivanov agreed that the screening of foreign direct investments is a mechanism of utmost importance for protecting the country's national interests and commended the active dialogue between the legislative, the executive and the business community regarding the introduction of the framework in Bulgaria. Rumiana Bachvarova stressed that institutions should speed up their efforts to build a working mechanism within the timeframe set by the law. Ilia Krastev highlighted that the pace of development and reinvestment of profits are significant in the investment process and approaches should be found to overcome possible delays caused by the imprecision of sectoral definitions in Bulgarian legislation. The Minister of Economy and Industry Bogdan Bogdanov noted that businesses should be actively involved in building and implementing the screening framework. "Having a law is not enough – we need to discuss a common investment development framework. Economies are connected and such an approach should work comprehensively," he commented.
Recognizing the interconnection between economic and national security and promoting joint and multilateral strategies are vital to strengthening the resilience of the national economy against malign threats. This was one of the main conclusions of CSD's latest publications on the topic – Open Gates, Guarded Walls: The Balancing Act between Openness and Security in European Investment Policies and Forging the Shield: National Economic Security Policies in an Era of Global Uncertainty– which were presented at the forum.
