The EU and China started to negotiate a standalone Bilateral Investment Agreement in 2013. The negotiations seem to be stuck and a final text of such an agreement seems to be « miles away“. In this presentation, the key elements of this envisaged east-west-investment agreement will be discussed, as well as the current « stumbling blocs“ to the agreement such as the China Market Economy Status question, EU-investment screening, the Role of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in investment law and the establishment of a Mortgage investment corporation (MIC).
Discussant:
Dr Duncan FREEMAN — Research Fellow at the EU-China Research Centre, College of Europe
Speaker
Marc BUNGENBERG is Director of the Europa-Institut and a professor of public law, European law and public international law at Saarland University in Germany, permanent visiting professor at the University of Lausanne/Switzerland and member of the scientific advisory board to the International Investment Law Centre in Cologne. Marc Bungenberg wrote his habilitation treatise at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, where he received the venia legendi for Public Law, European Law, Public International Law and International Economic Law. His main fields of research are European (Common Commercial Policy, public procurement and state aid law) and international economic law, particularly international investment law.
Discussant
Dr FREEMAN taught and carried out research on China’s economic and policy developments, as well as on EU-China relations, at the Brussels Diplomatic Academy and at the Brussels Academy for China and European Studies, both at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB). He holds a BA in Politics and Modern History from the University of Manchester, an MSc in Chinese Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, a Postgraduate Diploma in Economic Principles from the University of London and a PhD from the VUB. Dr FREEMAN previously lived and worked in Beijing and Hong Kong for a total of 17 years and is fluent in Chinese. During his time in Hong Kong, he was the editor and publisher of several leading publications on the Chinese legal and tax systems for business.
Lecture Series “The European Union as a Global International Actor and Investment Treaties
Organised by Prof. Eleftheria Neframi and Dr Mauro Gatti, University of Luxembourg
The conference is part of the Lecture Series on the theme The European Union as a Global International Actor, supported by the FNR (RESCOM Scientific Events). The objective of the Lecture Series is to involve a wide- ranging audience in interactive lectures delivered by renowned scholars in legal or political economy disciplines. The lectures cover various aspects of the external action of the European Union and aim at critically assessing its role in tackling challenges in a context of global governance.