The EU's international investment policy ten years on: the policy-making implications of unintended competence transfers

In 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon empowered the EU to pursue an international investment policy and to conclude international investment agreements. The EU's first steps in this policy domain have attracted considerable public attention. Analysts depict competing societal interests as the main forces shaping EU policy in this domain. This article scrutinizes this widespread perception. It argues that competence struggles between the European Institutions and Member States, which still echo broad Member State opposition against the initial decision to empower the EU in this domain during the drafting of the Lisbon Treaty, play a similarly important role in shaping EU international investment policy. This article enhances our understanding of EU policy-making in a highly salient policy domain and theoretically contributes to research on European Integration in that it shows that it matters for policy-making ‘how’ the EU received an underlying competence.