Conference Paper

The Treaty of Lisbon (ToL) is the EU's new legal framework. With its coming into force on December 1 2009, the way was paved towards a renewed EU institutional agenda and institutional and substantive changes in the status quo of external trade and investment policies. In this regard, two major questions arise: (1) The extension of the common commercial policy to FDI raises the question of whether the Lisbon Treaty intends to give the EU the exclusive competence to negotiate and conclude investment agreements which in turn may result in serious implications for the investment policy instruments of EU member states; (2) By bringing EU trade policy under the same EU external action heading as other elements of EU external policy, does the Treaty of Lisbon (ToL) increase the tendency of the EU to seek to use trade policy as an instrument in the pursuit of other external policy objectives? This paper aims to shed light on the likely effects of the treaty on EU external trade and investment policy formulation. Together with trade in services and intellectual property rights, the Lisbon Treaty brings FDI under the umbrella of Europe’s common commercial policy, making it the exclusive competence of the European Community. Under Lisbon, EU member states have decided to delegate their prerogatives to negotiate BIT to the supranational level of EU governance, enabling the EP to gain considerable decision-making powers vis-à-vis the European Commission and the European Council. The practical implications of the Lisbon Treaty for Europe’s external-investment policies remain uncertain, in part because of questions as to how the Treaty will be interpreted. Some of the following discussion highlights the impact of the Treaty on the Western Balkans and the EU.