Economic Statecraft: A Closer Look Inside the European Union’s Expanding Toolbox

The FSR and the FDI screening mechanism are just two examples of a much broader set of new tools intended to strengthen the EU’s hand in the evolving geo-economic confrontation. The purpose of this Article, however, is not to exhaustively map all relevant EU instruments. Rather, it focusses specifically on three tools that raise pressing questions from an international law perspective, critically examining how they fit within the international legal framework, and what they reveal about the EU’s place therein. These tools are the revised Trade Enforcement Regulation, the revised EU Blocking Statute, and the new “Anti-Coercion Instrument” (ACI).