What do Volvo, the port of the Piraeus, and the Château Viaud vineyard and winery in Bordeaux have in common? They are all owned by Chinese investors. In addition to the massive amounts of European sovereign debt and portfolio assets already in Chinese hands, private and state-owned Chinese companies have reportedly gone on a “shopping spree” in Europe in the past four years. The stock of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) is still minute compared to other sources of FDI in Europe, but Chinese investment will likely continue to grow on the European continent in the years to come. This is a novel situation for European countries more accustomed to investing in emerging, problematic economies than being treated like one of them. How will this influx of Chinese direct investment transform the political economy of Europe? This panel will gather a group of diverse scholars (political scientists and economists, comparativists and international relations scholars, specialists of Europe and of China) to analyze the factors that shape European responses to Chinese direct investment. It is part of a collective project that hopes to introduce key questions, new analytical insights, and novel hypotheses on the political economy of FDI in Europe. The papers presented will be submitted as part of a special issue of the journal Comparative European Politics.