A call for EU to block foreign investment

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BRUSSELS, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- European Union industry Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the EU should form an oversight committee to regulate incursions by foreign companies.

Tajani pointed specifically to China. "Chinese companies have the means to buy more and more European enterprises with key technologies in important sectors," he said, the EUobserver reported Wednesday.

He said the new agency should be similar to the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment, which operates as gatekeepers for foreign investment in the United States.

In an interview in Germany, Tajani said, "It is a question of investments but behind that there is also a strategic policy to which Europe should respond politically."

How much authority an international committee should have over one nation's investment policy is likely to be a heated political debate as well. In Germany, economic Minister Rainer Bruederle said, "Of course one can have an evaluation procedure taking into account security and public order concerns. But we shouldn't take hasty actions.

"Europe profits from the openness of its markets and offers attractive conditions for foreign investors," Bruederle said.