ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that supranational thinking, and in particular Commission entrepreneurship, may explain the emergence of the European Union's international investment policy. It evaluates why the Commission may have favoured an extension of Union competences to international investment policy. The principal-agent models point to five possible Commission strategies to consolidate its role and influence daily policymaking: agenda setting, information asymmetries, international forum shopping, and invoking of implied or fringe Union competences. The chapter argues that the Commission's growing role and influence in daily policymaking must be considered formal integration in the form of 'institutional layering' and 'conversion'. The continual integration of foreign economic policy in line with the evolving international economic agenda is, therefore, often seen as the key to the success of the Single Market and European Integration. Supranational and intergovernmental theories typically claim that either the Member States or supranational actors are in full control of European Integration and policymaking.
