Recent Filing Data On October 14, 2025, the Commission issued its Fifth Annual Report under Article 5 of the Regulation (the Report). The Report compiles screening statistics from Member States covering the 2024 calendar year and describes emerging developments in national screening mechanisms. Member States reported a total of 3,136 transactions reviewed by national authorities in 2024, either through notification or call-in review – a figure that reflects the continued maturation of national regimes. Notably, the 2024 statistics are significantly influenced by Sweden’s first full year of an operational FDI screening regime, which generated a large volume of notifications of transactions that were ultimately found to fall outside scope or to pose no apparent threat to security or public order. Excluding Sweden’s data, approximately 67% of reviewed cases required formal screening. Of the cases formally screened, Member States approved 95% of transactions, with 86% cleared unconditionally. Conditional clearances (involving conditions or mitigating measures) accounted for 9% in 2024. As in prior years, 1% of cases were blocked and 4% were withdrawn by the parties. The high proportion of clearances remains consistent with the stated position of the EU that the bloc remains open to FDI and that
interventions are expected to be limited to a very small proportion of transactions that are likely to pose a threat to security or public order. 477 notifications were submitted to the Commission via the cooperation mechanism in 2024, a figure roughly consistent with the 488 submitted in 2023 and representing a significant increase from the 67 reviewed through the mechanism in 2022. Of these, 85% of notifications were attributable to seven Member States: Spain, Austria, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Lithuania. 92% of the cases were closed in Phase 1 (within 15 calendar days of receipt of a notification). The remaining 8% of cases proceeded to Phase 2 (35 days of receipt of a notification) and were subject to additional information requests from the notifying Member State. In terms of sector focus, the Phase II reviews were primarily focused on manufacturing (50%), with critical technologies, critical infrastructure, supply of critical inputs and access to sensitive information as the principal factors driving Phase 2 assessment. As for the country of origin, investors from the U.S., the UK, China (including Hong Kong), Canada and Japan accounted for the majority of cases notified to the Commission. Moreover, the statistics also show that the Commission has remained consistent with its relatively light-touch approach in its advisory role: in 2024 a confidential opinion was issued in approximately 2% of the cases notified by Member States.
Although the Commission and third-party Member States are able to participate in ongoing FDI reviews by providing opinions, they have no binding effect on the reviewing Member State. However, reviewing Member States must take account – and in certain circumstances the ‘utmost account’ – of the Commission’s opinion.
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