Portugal Has Until 2028 to Overhaul How It Vets Foreign Takeovers as Brussels Makes Screening Mandatory
A new EU regulation forces Portugal to make foreign-investment screening mandatory in sensitive sectors by 2028 — and the government has yet to decide who will run it.
Portugal has just under two years to redraw the way it polices foreign takeovers of its most sensitive companies, after Brussels turned what had been a patchwork of national rules into a binding, EU-wide obligation.
The Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) confirmed this week that it is in "internal reflection" over how to put the new regime in place, telling the online newspaper ECO that it still has to settle "the most appropriate institutional model" and the "division of responsibilities between the competent entities." In plain terms: the government knows it must build a stronger screening system, but has not yet decided who will run it.
The clock is set by a regulation the European Council adopted on 8 June 2026, which replaces the bloc's first, largely voluntary framework from 2019. Member states have 18 months from the moment it takes force — so until 2028 — to bring their own laws into line.
From optional to obligatory
Until now, most EU countries, Portugal included, could choose whether and how closely to vet incoming investment. The new rules make screening mandatory across a defined list of sensitive sectors, impose prior notification and authorisation before a deal can close, and give authorities a fixed 45-day window — with no extensions — to reach a decision. A new "effective control" test is designed to stop buyers from slipping around the rules by routing an acquisition through an intra-EU subsidiary.
The scope is far wider than the three areas the old framework leaned on. It now reaches military and dual-use goods; so-called hypercritical technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors; critical raw materials; the energy, transport and digital infrastructure that keeps a country running; electoral infrastructure; and a selection of financial-sector entities.
Who holds the pen?
One institutional question is already contentious. The president of the Autoridade da Concorrência (Competition Authority), Nuno Cunha Rodrigues, has publicly ruled his own regulator out of the job, arguing that screening foreign investment demands a "different perspective" rooted in "national security and defence" rather than the competition analysis his agency is built for.
That leaves the government weighing whether to house the function inside a ministry, a dedicated inter-ministerial body, or a new authority altogether — a choice that will shape how aggressively Portugal actually uses the powers it is now required to hold.
The stakes are not abstract. Portugal has spent recent years courting foreign capital, from data centres and green-hydrogen plants to the wave of American and other non-EU money flowing into its property and technology sectors. A tougher screening regime does not close the door, but it does add a checkpoint — and investors, along with the Portuguese firms hoping to sell to them, will want to know as early as possible how long that checkpoint takes to clear. For now, the answer from Lisbon is that the design work is still under way.
