In recent months, the Netherlands government and the EU have stepped more directly into private ownership. Citing national security and support for Ukraine, authorities have taken, or are preparing, far-reaching measures that allow the state to intervene in who controls companies and owns assets.
In the Dutch case, the government imposed measures to closely monitor, and if necessary control, the business activities of Nexperia, invoking national security concerns. At an EU level, authorities are planning to confiscate (the proceeds from) Russian-linked assets in order to provide support for Ukraine, justifying this through newly developed emergency measures and sanctions law.
At first glance, these cases appear different. One concerns the ability to monitor and control strategic industry and foreign influence; the other involves direct ownership of (the proceeds from) assets. Viewed together, however, they reveal a deeper pattern.
Both actions are being taken under geopolitical pressure, at a moment when the Netherlands and the EU feel strategically threatened by China and Russia.
This matters because the consequences go far beyond the individual cases. Intervening in a company’s governance or confiscating assets is not a marginal act. It undermines legal certainty.
Undermining legal certainty erodes the trust that businesses, investors, and citizens rely on. This turns law into a source of political risk and tension: relationships are strained, investments are postponed, capital becomes more scarce, and long-term economic activity is weighed down.
Governments, of course, have justifications: national security, geopolitical power, and the protection of strategic interests. But once such measures are normalized, intervention is no longer exceptional; it becomes acceptable whenever a sufficient threat is perceived.
That shift deserves scrutiny. Who defines the threat? Under what safeguards? What is the broader impact? And how temporary are these “exceptional” powers once they prove politically useful?
None of this implies that the decisions are unlawful or ill-intentioned. The deeper question is whether Europe is quietly recalibrating the balance between state power, private ownership, and the rule of law. Not through a grand constitutional debate, but through case-by-case ‘necessity’.
Developments like these rarely announce themselves explicitly. Only later do we recognize them as the moment when something fundamental began to shift.
