The increasing threat of terrorist attacks in Europe and social demands for governmental actions towards facilitating an information exchange between the national authorities responsible for public security, lead to the spectacular shift towards collection of passengers’ data. Initially, the idea had concerned mainly aviation passengers’ data and was limited to international flights only. But soon it was extended in order to include the Passenger Name Records (PNR) from domestic transport. Recently, we can see tensions to expand the PNR collection scheme to other means of transport including maritime routes. The paper studies the most developed system created in Belgium and assesses its influence on possible all-European solutions. When presenting the main problems connected with profiling the passengers and data sharing between institutions, it discusses a lack of precise privacy impact assessment and the need for necessity and proportionality studies to be carried out both at the level of Member States and in the EU discussion on the implementation of the so called PNR Directive and on the new requirements for the digital registration of passengers and crew sailing on board European passenger ships included in 2017 amendments to Directive 98/41/EC.

On 19 March 2019 the European Union (EU) adopted the Regulation establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the EU (the “Regulation”). Four years later, the geopolitical situation changed completely as a result of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Since February 2022 the EU has successively expanded its sanctions imposed against Russia. In parallel – on 6 April 2022 – the European Commission published the Guidance to the Member States concerning foreign direct investment from Russia and Belarus in view of the military aggression against Ukraine and the restrictive measures laid down in recent Council Regulations on sanctions.
The aim of the article is to draw attention to selected aspects of the Regulation which may be relevant in face of the threats to the European and national security and public order posed by the actions of the regimes of Russia and Belarus, following the invasion of Ukraine. In the perspective of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the issues discussed in this article may be points that are worth considering when amending the Regulation in view of the announced revision of the Regulation in Autumn 2023.