On the role of trade in strengthening the EU’s economic security

MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

on the role of trade in strengthening the EU’s economic security

(2025/2113(INI))

– having regard to the Treaty on European Union,

– having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2019/452 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 March 2019 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union (FDI Screening Regulation),

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2021/821 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2021 setting up a Union regime for the control of exports, brokering, technical assistance, transit and transfer of dual-use items,

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2023/1781 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 September 2023 establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s semiconductor ecosystem and amending Regulation (EU) 2021/694 (Chips Act),

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2023/2675 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 November 2023 on the protection of the Union and its Member States from economic coercion by third countries,

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 establishing a framework for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials and amending Regulations (EU) No 168/2013, (EU) 2018/858, (EU) 2018/1724 and (EU) 2019/1020 (Critical Raw Materials Act),

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2024/1735 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 on establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology manufacturing ecosystem and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1724,

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2024/2747 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 October 2024 establishing a framework of measures related to an internal market emergency and to the resilience of the internal market and amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2679/98 (Internal Market Emergency and Resilience Act),

– having regard to the Commission recommendation of 3 October 2023 on critical technology areas for the EU’s economic security for further risk assessment with Member States (C(2023)6689),

– having regard to Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/63 of 15 January 2025 on reviewing outbound investments in technology areas critical for the economic security of the Union,

– having regard to Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/683 of 8 April 2025 on coordination of national control lists,

– having regard to the Council recommendation of 23 May 2024 on enhancing research security,

– having regard to the Commission proposal of 24 January 2024 for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the screening of foreign investments in the Union and repealing Regulation (EU) 2019/452 of the European Parliament and of the Council (COM(2024)0023),

– having regard to the Commission proposal of 11 March 2025 for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying a framework for strengthening the availability and security of supply of critical medicinal products as well as the availability of, and accessibility of, medicinal products of common interest, and amending Regulation (EU) 2024/795 (COM(2025)0102),

– having regard to the Commission proposal of 20 January 2026 for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), the European cybersecurity certification framework, and ICT supply chain security and repealing Regulation (EU) 2019/881 (The Cybersecurity Act 2) (COM(2026)0011),

– having regard to the Commission proposal of 21 January 2026 for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on digital networks, amending Regulation (EU) 2015/2120, Directive 2002/58/EC and Decision No 676/2002/EC and repealing Regulation (EU) 2018/1971, Directive (EU) 2018/1972 and Decision No 243/2012/EU (Digital Networks Act) (COM(2026)0016),

– having regard to the joint communication from the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of 20 June 2023 on ‘European Economic Security Strategy’ (JOIN(2023)0020),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 29 January 2025 entitled ‘A Competitiveness Compass for the EU’ (COM(2025)0030),

– having regard to the joint communication from the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of 3 December 2025 entitled ‘Strengthening EU economic security’ (JOIN(2025)0977),

– having regard to the report by Enrico Letta of April 2024 entitled ‘Much more than a market’,

– having regard to the Political Guidelines for the next European Commission 2024-2029 of 18 July 2024,

– having regard to the report by Mario Draghi of 9 September 2024 entitled ‘The future of European competitiveness’,

– having regard to the Mission Letter of 17 September 2024 from the President of the Commission to the Commissioner-designate for Trade and Economic Security and for Interinstitutional Relations and Transparency,

– having regard to the Union list of critical medicines established and maintained by the European Medicines Agency to address vulnerabilities and shortages in the supply of essential medicinal products,

– having regard to the Commission white paper of 24 January 2024 on export controls (COM(2024)0025),

– having regard to the Commission white paper of 24 January 2024 on outbound investments (COM(2024)0024),

– having regard to the Commission white paper of 24 January 2024 on options for enhancing support for research and development involving technologies with dual-use potential (COM(2024)0027),

– having regard to Rule 55 of its Rules of Procedure,

– having regard to the report of the Committee on International Trade (A10-0148/2026),

A. whereas the EU’s openness to trade and investment remains a cornerstone of its prosperity, competitiveness and global influence;

B. whereas the international economic environment has undergone a structural shift characterised by rising geopolitical rivalry, systemic competition, structural overcapacity and the increasing use of economic instruments for strategic purposes, such as the weaponisation of trade and economic dependencies and economic coercion;

C. whereas the increasing use of export controls or export restrictions, state aid policies that distort fair competition, trade weaponisation and economic coercion require the EU to urgently develop an effective economic security strategy that comprehensively addresses its economic vulnerabilities;

D. whereas a credible economic security strategy must be guided by the objective of strengthening the EU’s economic, digital and financial autonomy while preserving the integrity of the internal market, quantifying overdependencies in the relevant sectors, ensuring legal certainty for economic operators and upholding the EU’s commitment to fair and sustainable trade and a rules-based international order; whereas this also requires the reduction of strategic technological dependencies, including in digital infrastructure, semiconductors, cloud services and cybersecurity systems, as these are integral components of economic security;

E. whereas the joint communication of 3 December 2025 marks a conceptual shift in the EU’s approach to economic security, reflecting the recognition that trade and economic openness cannot be regarded solely as positive-sum in nature, and that third countries may leverage economic interdependency for strategic or coercive purposes; whereas, as a consequence, the EU and its Member States must be prepared to accept economic costs, where necessary, to reduce vulnerabilities and enhance overall security; whereas economic security considerations must therefore be integrated into the EU’s trade and economic policy as a structural dimension, rather than being treated as an exceptional departure from it;

F. whereas the concept of economic security has not been defined in EU law or in any official EU documentation, notwithstanding the comprehensive frameworks set out in the joint communications of 20 June 2023 and 3 December 2025; whereas a broad consensus has nonetheless emerged around the understanding that economic security for the EU consists in its capacity to anticipate, deter and respond to threats to its economy, its citizens and its strategic interests – including risks to supply chain resilience, to the physical and cyber security of critical infrastructure, to technology security, including through technology leakage, and to economic openness where dependencies are weaponised or coercion exercised – and that addressing it requires the EU to, on the one hand, tackle strategic dependencies through domestic production or diversification and, on the other hand, mitigate structural vulnerabilities through the preservation of EU control over critical assets, including through the screening of foreign investments;

G. whereas recent analysis reveals production cost differentials of 30 % to 40 % between European and Chinese producers, affecting close to two thirds of European manufacturing added value; whereas these differentials are structural and self-reinforcing, driven by a coherent system of state support, factor cost advantages and regulatory asymmetry that productivity gains alone cannot offset; whereas the EU is experiencing an unprecedented trade imbalance with China, with the deficit reaching EUR 400 billion despite the EU maintaining an overall surplus with the rest of the world; whereas this imbalance has been driven by massively subsidised manufacturing overcapacity in China, which has led to deindustrialisation in the EU; whereas the expected exchange rate adjustment has not materialised, further widening competitiveness gaps and contributing to losses of market share for European manufactures; whereas existing EU trade defence instruments are largely product-specific and their implementation, as it currently stands, is insufficient to address systemic, economy-wide distortions of this magnitude;

H. whereas the EU allocates significantly fewer administrative resources to trade defence enforcement than comparable jurisdictions, thereby raising practical barriers to the opening and handling of cases at a time when European industries face mounting trade pressure; whereas, relative to total import volumes and values, the EU already makes substantially less frequent use of trade defence instruments than the United States, Canada and Australia; whereas EU anti-dumping duties are often markedly lower than those imposed by other major economies despite comparable findings of dumping and injury; whereas the EU is required to apply an injury margin if it is less than the dumping margin; whereas the EU has been reluctant to act on the basis of a threat of injury alone; whereas this combination of lower enforcement intensity, procedural constraints and comparatively modest duty levels contributes to trade diversion and to the perception of the EU as a softer enforcement environment or ‘dumping ground’, thereby increasing pressure on the EU’s industrial base;

I. whereas climate change and environmental degradation constitute a growing and systemic risk to the EU’s long-term economic security, disrupting supply chains, threatening agricultural production and driving competition for resources; whereas the weaponisation of fossil fuel deliveries by Russia, after it began its war of aggression against Ukraine, demonstrated with particular clarity that dependency on imported energy from unreliable third countries constitutes a direct and acute threat to the EU’s economic security, and that accelerating and de-risking the transition to renewable energy sources is therefore not only an environmental imperative but a strategic one; whereas, however, the green transition itself has rapidly generated new and significant dependencies, notably with regard to critical raw materials and clean technologies, such as solar panels, photovoltaic inverters, electric vehicles and grid batteries, the supply of which is concentrated in China; whereas the EU must take care not to substitute one strategic dependency for another, and must therefore pursue genuine autonomy in the inputs required for the ecological transition as a core component of its economic security strategy;

J. whereas supply chain monitoring can help to identify, prevent and mitigate economic security risks;

K. whereas economic security must ultimately serve the EU’s citizens; whereas the ability to withstand and manage external economic shocks is a prerequisite for the preservation of living standards, the continuity of public services and the maintenance of social cohesion; whereas economic security policy must therefore be assessed not only in terms of macroeconomic aggregates or strategic interests, but also with reference to its concrete impact on the well-being of citizens;

I. The evolving economic security risk landscape

1. Welcomes the joint communication of 3 December 2025 as a necessary step to strengthen the EU’s common approach to economic security; notes that further steps are necessary to operationalise the EU’s economic security objectives, including an action plan, a roadmap and concrete targets on de-risking supply chains in strategic sectors;

2. Considers that the joint communication rightly emphasises the need for a change of culture, moving from a reactive to a more proactive approach to economic security; underlines that this requires a paradigm shift towards a whole-of-system approach, in which the Commission, Parliament, the Member States, the private sector and other public and private stakeholders work together to contribute to the objective of strengthening the EU’s economic security; underlines that a genuine European economic security strategy must be based on a strategic orientation, integrating and strategically aligning policies in the fields of climate and energy, trade and competition, digital market regulation, industrial policy, research and innovation, foreign investment and the role of the euro;

3. Shares the Commission’s assessment that economic security measures can carry a certain cost both for companies and public institutions in the short term, but underlines that the costs resulting from dependencies and exposure to economic coercion are much higher; calls for such measures to be adequately supported through the next multiannual financial framework’s Horizon Europe and Competitiveness Fund; encourages the Commission to ensure sufficient support for the industries and workers most affected by supply chain disruptions or other forms of economic pressure or economic coercion;

4. Recalls that the EU is one of the largest global trading powers, deriving more than 20 % of its GDP from external trade; stresses that trade and international investment are of fundamental importance to the EU’s economy; underlines that the EU’s high degree of integration into global markets has increased its exposure to disruptions, coercive practices and strategic leverage by third countries, exercised through chokepoints in supply chains, monopolistic positions in critical inputs, dependency on high-risk suppliers of critical technologies and vulnerabilities in key physical and digital infrastructure and in terms of energy imports from third countries; stresses that this substantial and structural dependency on external actors for strategic goods, services and infrastructure creates dangerous vulnerabilities that need to be addressed urgently;

5. Underlines that recent crises – including the COVID-19 pandemic, disruptions to energy supplies resulting from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the proliferation of illegal tariffs, trade restrictions and other protectionist measures, recurring tensions affecting global transport and logistics routes, coercive restrictions on access to critical materials, the escalating economic impact of climate change, including as a result of extreme weather events that disrupt production and logistics, state aid policies, and third countries’ dumping of subsidised overcapacity in key sectors of European markets – have shown how import dependencies can rapidly translate into shortages, inflation, harm to local production capacities and production stoppages; underlines that export dependencies also have proven to be a substantial risk to EU exporters; stresses that both import and export dependencies amount to concrete constraints on Europe’s economic activity and the EU’s ability to respond effectively to external shocks; emphasises that these vulnerabilities are structural rather than temporary, as they result from concentrations and monopolies that have developed over time;

6. Expresses deep concern regarding China’s systemic market distortions that fuel overcapacity, including extensive state-directed support mechanisms, strategic ‘Buy China’ procurement, preferential treatment of domestic firms and a lack of reciprocity; reiterates that trade cannot be fair in a system where one country dominates and floods the global market;

7. Welcomes the Commission’s plan to create a comprehensive, systematic, regularly updated assessment of the EU’s most critical dependencies along value chains, and calls for these assessments to include an analysis of vulnerabilities that could potentially result in EU chokepoints, including quantified data on import concentrations and global market shares by country and sector;

II. Prevention through diversification, innovation and competitiveness

8. Emphasises that economic security must not be interpreted as economic isolation; reaffirms that openness to sustainable trade and investment, combined with measures aimed at addressing unfair competition and the diversification of partners, suppliers, energy imports and transport routes, is one of the EU’s primary means of reducing structural vulnerability to external shocks and disruptions in critical sectors and to coercive practices; emphasises that strengthening the EU’s resilience and economic security should be an explicit objective of any EU trade or investment partnership; stresses that fostering demand for EU-produced alternatives and creating EU-based sectoral ecosystems are key to credibly building the EU’s economic security;

9. Emphasises that the openness of the EU’s market must be grounded in the principles of reciprocity, reliability and non-coercion, and that it cannot be unconditional where fundamental security interests are at stake; stresses that the EU has considerable economic strengths, in particular its EUR 18 trillion single market with its 450 million consumers, its leadership in high-tech manufacturing and services, its high standards and norms, and its high-quality educational institutions and research and development (R&D) programmes; underlines that these strengths should be leveraged in the face of external coercion, specifically in areas where European goods or technologies are indispensable in global markets;

10. Warns that a micro- and macroeconomic environment that weakens business competitiveness, including such features as internal market barriers, unnecessary administrative burdens, regulatory uncertainty, high energy prices, overly complex permitting procedures and underinvestment, discourages innovation and undermines the EU’s economic resilience and security objectives;

11. Stresses that the EU’s economic security cannot be substantially strengthened as long as the European economy is overly dependent on imports of fossil fuels or renewable technologies; considers that the pursuit of stable and predictable decarbonisation policies aimed at achieving net zero and ending fossil fuel imports contributes to strengthening economic security and boosting the EU’s competitiveness; underlines that substantially increased and accelerated investment in electrification and in a circular economy is fundamental to reducing the EU’s strategic dependencies on external actors; encourages the Commission to adopt strong and broad demand-side policies to boost demand for European low-carbon strategic goods central to the energy transition, such as green steel, batteries, renewable energies and semiconductors; further calls on the Commission to ensure that the green transition does not replicate the same structural logic of dependency in a different form, and, to this end, to prioritise EU-level production capacity, strategic stockpiling and robust diversification of sourcing for the critical raw materials and clean technology components on which the transition depends;

12. Stresses that a fully functioning and integrated single market is a cornerstone of economic security; underlines that deeper integration and the removal of barriers to a truly harmonised market for goods, services and capital are essential for the EU’s long-term socio-economic model, competitiveness and security; considers that the scaling-up of investment in education, innovation and R&D is an essential component of the long-term strategy to protect the EU’s economic security;

13. Deplores the EU’s excessive dependency on third countries for the supply of critical raw materials, recognising that such reliance exposes the EU to significant geopolitical, economic and supply-chain vulnerabilities; considers, therefore, that strengthening domestic resilience, including through strategic projects in domestic mining and processing, enhanced recycling capacities, improved resource efficiency, and the full implementation of a circular economy model constitutes a sustainable and strategic solution; calls for an ambitious circular economy act; calls for the stimulation of investment in critical innovative circular technology and for the protection of such investment;

14. Underlines that protecting citizens from the materialisation of external economic shocks – including disruptions to supply chains, energy price surges and the consequences of economic coercion – is a core objective of economic security policy; calls on the Commission and the Member States to ensure that the social impact of economic security measures is systematically assessed and that such measures do not disproportionately affect the most vulnerable;

15. Recalls that trade policy is a strategic component of the EU’s power and should be used proactively to protect the EU’s security interests and strategic autonomy; stresses the need to move beyond a predominantly defensive approach and to combine and deploy existing instruments in a more strategic and forward-looking manner, including by leveraging economic interdependencies in ways that enhance the EU’s geopolitical position;

16. Recalls that the effectiveness of the EU’s trade and economic security agenda depends on the consistent application of trade rules and essential clauses in trade, partnership and association agreements; calls, in this regard, on the Commission to strengthen its efforts to ensure full and effective compliance with its own commitments and obligations, especially in view of policy coherence for development;

17. Calls on the Commission to finalise ongoing negotiations and actively pursue a strategic and ambitious approach to trade agreements and sectoral partnerships with reliable partners as a central element of its diversification strategy; considers that the diversification of third-country suppliers and export markets should be based on and guided by a clear assessment of the EU’s structural vulnerabilities; stresses the need for traditional comprehensive free trade agreements to be complemented, as a matter of priority, with new, more agile and targeted forms of trade and investment partnerships that explicitly aim to de-risk imports and exports through the development of secure and resilient supply chains in certain high-risk sectors; underlines that such partnerships should include binding commitments and require the full involvement of Parliament and transparency with regard to Parliament throughout the negotiations, as well as Parliament’s consent in the ratification process;

18. Underlines the strategic importance of the modernised EU-Mercosur Association Agreement for the EU’s economic security; stresses that the agreement will contribute to diversifying access to critical raw materials and reinforcing resilient value chains;

19. Highlights the strategic relevance of advancing economic and trade engagement with India, an increasingly important manufacturing and technology hub with a growing role in digital services and the supply of critical raw materials;

20. Stresses the importance of accelerating ongoing negotiations for free trade agreements with partners such as the Philippines and Thailand and finalising the trade agreement with Indonesia, in view of their growing role in the production of critical minerals, electronics and clean technology components; underlines that predictable trade frameworks are necessary to address export restrictions and supply concentration risks and to anchor the EU more firmly in Indo-Pacific industrial value chains;

21. Welcomes the finalisation of trade negotiations with Australia, a reliable and like-minded partner; stresses the importance of this rules-based partnership in contributing to stability of supply and diversification of supply chains, given Australia’s significant reserves of critical raw materials and its production of mining and processing technologies; welcomes further collaboration on addressing common economic security challenges, particularly given Australia’s first-hand experience in responding to economic coercion;

22. Calls for the establishment of a structured EU-UK economic security dialogue to enhance coordination on trade, investment screening and supply chain resilience; supports closer cooperation under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement to anticipate disruptions in strategic sectors;

23. Supports the call of the EU Indo-Pacific Strategy for deeper cooperation with Asian partners on economic security, including through enhanced partnerships with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and through closer interaction with partners participating in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership;

24. Urges the Member States to ratify the outstanding free trade agreements;

25. Calls on the Commission to propose a renewed and comprehensive trade and investment dialogue with developing countries and regions, on the basis of mutually beneficial partnerships that go beyond expanding market access or extracting natural resources; emphasises the importance of fostering local and regional value creation under trade agreements and sectoral partnerships by developing clean and sustainable value chains while promoting inclusive and sustainable development and ensuring the protection of environmental standards and labour rights;

26. Notes that the EU currently depends on China for around 98 % of its supply of rare earths and over 90 % of its magnesium imports, that domestic recycling rates for rare earths remain below 1 %, and that over 60 % of global lithium refining capacity and over 85 % of rare earth processing capacity are concentrated in a single third country, leaving the EU far from meeting the targets set in the Critical Raw Materials Act; highlights the importance of the agreements concluded with like-minded countries in this area and the need to continue negotiating new partnerships to enhance the resilience of EU supply chains;

27. Stresses that the EU’s trade policy should have as a strategic objective the diversification of supply sources of critical raw materials given their crucial role in the green and digital transitions and in defence; notes that while the Critical Raw Materials Act is an important step towards strengthening the EU’s resilience, it remains insufficient to address key vulnerabilities, particularly the continued concentration of refining and processing capacities in a limited number of third countries; underlines that the act relies on non-binding benchmarks at EU level and that the availability of dedicated funding and effective implementation capacity remains limited;

28. Welcomes the RESourceEU initiative to boost funding for strategic domestic mining, processing capacity and recycling; underlines, however, that these promotion measures need to be combined with protection and partnership measures in order to successfully de-risk the critical raw materials value chain by 2030; reiterates that the long-term business case for and the viability of investments in trusted critical raw materials value chains should therefore be accompanied by price floors and offtake guarantees in strong cooperation with like-minded countries, thereby counteracting the risk of a third country abusing its monopoly positions to undercut vulnerable competitors; stresses that the RESourceEU initiative must become an effective instrument to accelerate the achievement of the 2030 targets set in the Critical Raw Materials Act; underlines that unless there is rapid mobilisation of coordinated financial support for extraction, processing and recycling projects, the EU will not be in a position to meet its benchmarks within the established time frame;

29. Underlines that the EU’s critical raw materials diplomacy should extend beyond extraction and access to primary resources and should systematically address processing, refining and downstream activities, where strategic vulnerabilities and concentration risks remain particularly acute;

III. Monitoring, managing and mitigating identified risks

30. Concludes that reinforcing the EU’s economic security is key to safeguarding the EU’s economic and political sovereignty, the integrity of the single market, the resilience of supply chains, the economic viability of EU companies and the livelihoods of EU citizens, including with respect to quality jobs; underlines that a comprehensive and integrated economic security approach should be aimed not only at reducing external dependencies, but also at building strategic autonomy in critical raw materials, technology, energy, transport, finance and digital infrastructure; therefore calls on the Commission to mainstream economic security across all industrial policies, including sectoral legislation and supply chain risk assessments, to ensure a consistent approach;

31. Acknowledges that certain critical economic exposures, by virtue of their scale, concentration, strategic importance or irreversibility, require targeted, urgent and decisive mitigating measures; underlines that, in such cases, measures may legitimately include restrictions on, or the prohibition of, market access, economic activity or investment flows from third countries in order to safeguard the EU’s essential interests and public order; reiterates that access to the single market is the EU’s greatest leverage point and calls on the Commission and the Member States to make use of reverse dependencies to pressure third countries to remove illegitimate export restrictions imposed on the EU;

32. Encourages the Commission to propose more measures to prevent or limit economic security risks; supports, in that regard, the Commission’s proposal to require EU operators to diversify suppliers in specific high-risk sectors; considers that this should be expanded in future to also require operators to diversify the country or region of supply;

33. Stresses the need to develop effective tools aimed at the early monitoring, identification and assessment of economic security risks along value chains in high-risk areas to allow the proactive mapping of existing and potential strategic dependencies; underlines that the Member States and the private sector are fundamental partners in identifying and assessing dependencies; supports the Commission’s proposal to establish an economic security intelligence hub to consolidate available information; calls on the Commission to develop tools aimed at sharing economic intelligence with international partners in order to anticipate third-country actions that weaponise dependencies against the EU;

34. Calls on the Commission to establish an annual economic security scoreboard to systematically assess progress towards the goals set in the Economic Security Strategy; underlines that such a mechanism should include clear and measurable indicators showing, among other things, the reduction of critical dependencies by sector, the number of trade defence instruments identified as relevant for economic security, and the increase in the number of alternative suppliers; stresses that transparent and regular reporting is essential to ensure accountability and informed policy adjustment;

35. Stresses that such measures should be proportionate and tailored to the severity and persistence of the risk, be based on clearly defined risk thresholds, objective and verifiable criteria and prior assessments, and be subject to continuous monitoring and review;

36. Emphasises that, as proposed by the Commission in the joint communication of 3 December 2025, existing EU instruments designed to address structural vulnerabilities, market distortions and non-market behaviour should be modernised, where necessary, and deployed more strategically and decisively, and that fragmented, hesitant or inconsistent use of such instruments undermines their effectiveness, including their deterrent effect; urges the Commission to shorten the timeline for trade defence investigations and to follow the example of various countries in making greater use of existing threat-of-injury provisions and provisional measures, both of which are legally permissible but underutilised, to prevent irreparable damage to EU industry;

37. Stresses that although economic security cannot, in the long term, be achieved through general autarkic or protectionist measures, it is currently urgently necessary to take targeted measures to stop the wave of deindustrialisation and protect strategic sectors in the EU from unfair competition from cheap third-country imports in sectors such as steel, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, renewable energy and green goods; calls on the Commission to develop an action plan to protect the EU strategic sectors at greatest risk from global overcapacity;

38. Considers that the simultaneous expansion of industrial capacity across multiple strategic sectors by certain major third-country economies, notably China, constitutes a systemic competitive challenge that cannot be adequately addressed through sector-by-sector responses; considers that systemic risks of this nature require systemic responses, targeting the structural conditions that generate overcapacity at scale rather than managing their consequences in individual markets;

39. Welcomes the Commission proposal of 7 October 2025 for a regulation addressing the negative trade-related effects of global overcapacity on the Union steel market as an acknowledgement of the strategic importance of maintaining a viable European steel sector; underlines that the loss of European steel production capacity would constitute an irreversible risk to economic security; notes, however, that the problem of overcapacity is not limited to steel and aluminium but also affects many other sectors, such as chemicals, and products derived from steel and aluminium; is concerned that trade defence investigations are too slow, resource-intensive and product-specific to adequately address the economy-wide distortions occasioned by overcapacity; believes that the EU should equip itself with appropriate instruments to monitor and address systemic overcapacity throughout the value chain;

IV. Trade policy instruments, enforcement and deterrence

40. Stresses that deterrence and competitiveness are weakened where enforcement action is delayed, inconsistent or perceived as uncertain; calls, therefore, on the Commission to ensure timely decision-making, clear activation criteria and predictable consequences once the presence or threat of economic security risks or unfair practices has been established;

41. Stresses that the effective enforcement of EU trade policy and the expanding economic security dimension require adequate administrative and technical resources; calls on the Commission to ensure that its Directorate-General for Trade and Economic Security has sufficient staffing, expertise and resources to effectively enforce trade defence instruments and implement the EU’s economic security strategy; emphasises that in the current geoeconomic context, the EU’s economic security capabilities should be boosted;

42. Underlines that the systematic enforcement of current trade rules constitutes the EU’s primary and proportionate response to non-compliance and a prerequisite for any credible economic security strategy; regrets, however, that the enforcement of current rules falls short of fully addressing the problem; therefore calls on the Commission to introduce higher anti-dumping duties, similar to those applied by comparable partners, to counter trade diversion and dumping on the EU market; further calls on the Commission to include environmental, energy and labour costs when calculating the dumping margin of third-country exporters and to shift away from the ‘lesser duty’ rule, which is not required by the World Trade Organization (WTO);

43. Notes that anti-dumping and anti-subsidy proceedings are too narrowly targeted, too resource-intensive and too slow to address the scale and structural nature of the competitive challenges and overcapacity now facing EU industry;

44. Underlines that the EU’s resilience objectives – encompassing the ability to manage ecological, economic and social transitions in a sustainable, equitable and democratic manner, as well as the preservation of human, animal and plant health and of natural resources – are firmly entrenched in primary and secondary EU law; considers that this legal framework provides a robust and largely untapped basis for invoking the general exceptions provided for in Article XX of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; calls on the Commission to make fuller and more systematic use of Article XX exceptions where EU measures pursuing these legitimate policy objectives are challenged within the framework of the WTO;

45. Calls on the Commission to propose changes to existing tools to allow more active, strategic and coordinated use and to propose new tools where a clear and demonstrable gap in the effectiveness of existing EU instruments has been identified; calls for the streamlining of existing and future legislation and initiatives relevant to economic security;

46. Underlines that the credibility of the EU’s response to economic coercion depends first and foremost on its willingness to identify and formally characterise coercive practices in a timely manner, thus initiating the process that underpins both deterrence and negotiating leverage; considers the Anti-Coercion Instrument to be the most appropriate tool to leverage the EU’s strengths in this regard; stresses that the instrument should be triggered in the face of coercion or threats thereof and that all avenues for de-escalation should be explored, with countermeasures being imposed as a last resort;

47. Calls on the Commission to urgently strengthen the EU’s deterrent capacity; urges the Commission to develop a proactive strategy to respond to threats targeting the EU’s economic sovereignty, including its underlying critical infrastructure; emphasises that such a strategy must be able to quickly and effectively deter foreign actors from acting on their threats by making use of the full arsenal of the EU’s toolbox of countermeasures;

48. Emphasises that where enforcement and engagement fail to change behaviour, the EU’s response should follow a gradual, commensurate and reversible escalation approach, allowing pressure to be increased in a controlled manner while maintaining legal certainty and credible options for de-escalation; urges the Commission to respond more decisively in this regard, recalling that measures that fail to alter injurious and coercive behaviour risk undermining the credibility and leverage of the EU’s trade policy, incurring a high initial political cost for intervention but without restoring a level playing field;

49. Calls on the Commission to ensure that the application of enforcement, trade defence and anti-coercion instruments is coordinated within a coherent operational framework, in coordination with the Member States and economic operators; further calls on the Commission to explore the development of a mechanism for EU-level burden-sharing to help distribute the costs of national responses to economic coercion, ensuring political cohesion and economic resilience in the face of escalating trade tensions;

50. Underlines that European public funding power is a core strength of the EU; considers that no EU public money should be spent unless it demonstrably strengthens the EU’s sovereignty and resilience; calls on the Commission to leverage this strength and establish a funding suspension tool to allow the rapid restriction of access to EU funding in situations where third countries take measures that undermine the EU’s economic security;

51. Stresses the need to ensure secure and uninterrupted access to critical components, raw materials and enabling technologies used in defence-related production; underlines that supply chain vulnerabilities in dual-use sectors may directly affect the EU’s operational readiness and economic resilience;

52. Emphasises that the increasing linkages between civilian innovation and defence applications require a common approach to screening, export control and investment oversight in dual-use sectors in order to prevent unintended transfers of sensitive technologies while preserving the EU’s competitiveness;

53. Highlights the structural limitations in the EU’s dual-use export control framework, particularly its reliance on slow-moving multilateral regimes, its limited capacity to anticipate and respond to emerging and rapidly evolving technologies, and its fragmented implementation across Member States;

54. Considers that the current export control framework is a patchwork of different national policies and measures at Member State level, which lacks the effectiveness, consistency and speed required to respond to the current geoeconomic context; underlines that reforming and moving beyond existing national export control policies is urgently necessary to ensure the EU’s economic security; stresses the need to develop a harmonised export control regime at EU level; stresses that aligning export controls with international partners would substantially strengthen the EU’s economic security;

55. Welcomes the recent updates to the EU’s dual-use export control list in line with the list agreed under the auspices of the Wassenaar Arrangement, even though the latter was vetoed by Russia; calls for an urgent revision of Regulation (EU) 2021/821 to enable the EU to speak with one voice on export controls and establish uniform controls across the EU, while maintaining international alignment and legal certainty for operators; calls, in this context, for the establishment of a consolidated common economic security policy unit within the Commission to address the evolving economic security challenges posed by third countries’ persistent evasion of EU export controls and sanctions; notes that this unit should be supported by the intelligence community of the Member States, with enhanced access to real-time intelligence on evasion networks and capabilities for real-time intelligence sharing with industry to identify emerging evasion tactics; further notes that it should be equipped with the authority to enforce export controls and with resources for technology development, analysis and international coordination, and with the authority to implement robust verification systems and supply chain tracking technologies;

56. Stresses that the EU’s common security and defence policy should ensure coherence with EU economic security objectives; underlines that strategic dependencies, supply chain vulnerabilities and coercive economic practices increasingly have direct security implications and impact the capacity of the EU’s defence technological and industrial base; calls for economic security considerations to be systematically integrated into EU strategic policies, defence planning and crisis response mechanisms in order to strengthen the EU’s preparedness and resilience in an increasingly contested geopolitical environment;

V. Investment, capital flows and strategic exposure

57. Welcomes the ongoing legislative work on the industrial accelerator act and underlines its potential to contribute to the EU’s economic security objectives; considers that the act could make a substantial contribution to reducing strategic dependencies and enhancing the EU’s resilience to external shocks and coercive practices;

58. Stresses that EU-funded programmes in strategically sensitive sectors should be designed and implemented so as to primarily benefit investments that strengthen European industrial capacity, technological development and value creation in the EU; underlines that access to EU funding in these sectors should be subject to appropriate safeguards and conditions to ensure that recipients do not pose economic security risks and that the activities funded contribute effectively to the EU’s long-term resilience and strategic interests;

59. Stresses that there is also a need for measures incentivising manufacturing in the EU, in order to make the EU more indispensable in critical supply chains and chokepoints; welcomes the resilience requirements set out in the Net-Zero Industry Act and underlines the importance of combining them with quotas from reliable suppliers, also with a view to stimulating alternative EU-based suppliers and achieving the manufacturing targets set in the Net-Zero Industry Act;

60. Stresses that public procurement decisions in strategic sectors should be used as a lever to strengthen the EU’s industrial capacity, security of supply and economic security; underlines that access to public contracts in such sectors and to the associated EU support should be subject to clear eligibility conditions ensuring that participating entities do not pose economic security risks;

61. Stresses the need to address the lack of reciprocal access in public procurement for key sectors; calls for the effective use, vis-à-vis third countries, of the EU’s instruments to respond to restrictive or discriminatory procurement measures, on the basis of the principle of a level playing field;

62. Recalls that cross-border investment and capital flows are important drivers of growth, innovation and competitiveness in the EU; notes that European scale-ups requiring over EUR 1 billion in funding are frequently forced to leave the EU to secure capital; calls on the Commission, therefore, to urgently complete the capital union, and for the European Competitiveness Fund to fill this scale-up funding gap; notes; however, that investments may create exposure where control, influence, or access to sensitive assets, technologies or critical infrastructure become concentrated in third countries;

63. Stresses the importance of the revised FDI Screening Regulation as a core economic security instrument, and calls for its consistent, effective and rigorous application across all Member States, including through comprehensive national screening mechanisms, clear timelines, and strengthened cooperation and information-sharing between national authorities and the Commission, and for effective follow-up where risks are identified; urges the Commission to make full and proactive use of the provisions in the revised regulation to ensure that the list of critical technologies is kept under constant review and updated regularly;

64. Calls for a more coherent and coordinated European approach to investment screening, supported by stronger enforcement at EU level and more robust and clearly defined market access conditions; calls, in this regard, for additional strong foreign direct investment screening mechanisms with economic security indicators such as joint ventures, transfer of technologies to European entities, offtake agreements whereby foreign investment partners commit to purchase a specific share of production, employment of EU workers and integration with EU value chains;

65. Expresses deep concern about the accelerating pace at which major non-EU technology companies are consolidating market power in AI and quantum technologies; calls on the Commission to assess whether existing EU mechanisms are adequately equipped to detect, review and, where necessary, halt non-traditional transactions, such as hire-and-license-out (HALO) arrangements, that undermine the EU’s economic security in strategically sensitive sectors by circumventing merger notification thresholds and foreign direct investment screening scrutiny;

66. Takes note of Japan’s experience in strengthening its economic security framework following the 2010 disruption of rare earth supplies, which exposed the strategic risks of excessive dependency on a single supplier; highlights as a model the role played by the country’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in coordinating investment screening, export controls and industrial resilience measures;

67. Calls for the EU to learn from the role played by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States in ensuring a coherent and coordinated approach to investment screening and the protection of critical technologies across different agencies and institutions;

68. Underlines that investments affecting critical infrastructure require heightened vigilance, as changes in ownership, governance or operational control can directly affect the security and continuity of supply, including, in particular, major transport and logistics hubs that are critical for external trade and military mobility, as well as energy generation, transmission, distribution and storage infrastructure; is deeply concerned by the deepening dependency on high-risk vendors in EU critical infrastructure; concludes that the EU has replicated its dependency on fossil fuels in its imports of clean technologies from high-risk third countries, especially in wind, solar and batteries, noting that these are often equipped with remote monitoring and update capabilities, creating significantly greater risks of data exfiltration, system disruption or remote interference in energy grids, transport systems and other critical infrastructure; considers that such structural dependencies expose the EU to economic coercion and security vulnerabilities at a time of heightened geopolitical competition and urges the EU to become more autonomous in those sectors; welcomes the revision of the Cybersecurity Act as an opportunity to ensure that all critical infrastructure operators are restricted from using systems with remote monitoring capabilities that are manufactured by or made with technology licensed from high-risk vendors;

69. Considers it essential that the Commission exercise a stronger role in ensuring the EU’s economic security, commensurate with the EU’s exclusive competence for the common commercial policy under Article 207 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union; points, in this regard, to the Foreign Subsidies Regulation as a powerful and effective EU-level instrument to protect the internal market from distortions and underlines its significant deterrent value; deems it crucial that the Commission be ultimately responsible for authorising or blocking foreign direct investments in the EU where they give rise to EU-wide economic security risks; warns that leaving such decisions to Member States creates the risk of a race to the bottom whereby competition for inbound investment leads individual Member States to approve transactions that are detrimental to the EU’s collective interests; calls on the Commission to make full and determined use of its powers under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, including through ex officio investigations, to address emerging circumvention practices such as duty offshoring, whereby exporters acquire or establish production facilities in third countries or within the EU to obtain a new origin for goods, thereby bypassing existing EU anti-dumping or anti-subsidy duties, or to acquire a monopoly position in the EU market;

70. Stresses that economic security risks also arise where outbound investment, strategic partnerships or corporate restructuring enable the transfer, development or scaling-up of sensitive technologies, production capabilities or technical know-how outside the EU, including through greenfield investments, joint ventures, licensing arrangements, contract manufacturing or the relocation of key research and development and manufacturing activities; stresses that such transfers may weaken the EU’s long-term industrial base or technological leadership;

71. Takes note of the Commission’s recommendations on outbound investment and stresses the need to develop a common understanding at EU level of the potential risks arising from investments, partnerships or corporate restructuring; underlines the importance of a targeted, risk- and evidence-based and proportionate approach, limited to clearly identified and well-defined risks, in order to avoid unintended spillover effects on legitimate economic activities and to ensure that the EU’s competitiveness, innovation capacity and legitimate global economic engagement are not undermined; calls on the Commission to propose an outbound investment screening framework aimed at addressing the risks of critical technology leakage as soon as possible;

72. Emphasises that, to safeguard its economic security, the EU must maintain its effective control, decision-making capacity and operational autonomy or strategic indispensability with regard to critical technologies, including, in particular, advanced semiconductors and microelectronics, cloud and data infrastructure, AI and high-performance computing, quantum technologies, advanced robotics, space-based and satellite systems, cybersecurity and encryption technologies, and key energy-related technologies, as these are essential pillars of Europe’s technological and economic sovereignty; calls on the Commission to ensure that investment-related risks in these areas are assessed and addressed in a targeted and confidential manner;

73. Stresses that the EU should participate fully in emerging semiconductor coordination frameworks; underlines that the EU is currently under-represented in such arrangements, despite the strategic role of some EU companies in the global semiconductor supply chains;

74. Stresses that, in strategically sensitive sectors, intellectual property and industrial know-how constitute core strategic assets, the control and location of which are essential to the EU’s economic security; underlines that public support, procurement decisions and foreign investment authorisations should include safeguards ensuring that critical intellectual property generated or developed within the EU remains effectively anchored in the EU and is not transferred outside it in ways that undermine the EU’s technological leadership and industrial capacity;

75. Stresses that economic security risks may also arise after an investment has taken place and underlines the need for effective monitoring and risk assessment of post-investment developments, including governance, strategic decision-making and the potential transfer of critical technologies or know-how in order to ensure that the objectives of the EU’s investment screening framework are fully met;

VI. Economic security across sectoral policies

76. Considers maritime transport routes, ports and logistics services to be critical economic security assets and stresses that safeguarding freedom of navigation should be a key diplomatic and military objective for the EU; calls for stronger EU-level contingency planning and coordinated preparedness mechanisms to address prolonged disruptions affecting major maritime chokepoints, such as the Strait of Hormuz;

77. Calls for an EU air freight resilience mechanism for essential goods (such as medical supplies and critical components), including rapid capacity mobilisation and simplified authorisation procedures during crisis periods;

78. Calls for a strategic approach to rail freight corridors, prioritising the strengthening and integration of the EU’s internal freight network to address existing inefficiencies and bottlenecks, while also supporting diversified and resilient connections with third countries, including along Europe-Asia routes; emphasises the need for risk assessment of corridor infrastructure, operators and digital systems supporting rail freight;

79. Notes that maritime insurance premiums and risk classifications can become de facto trade barriers in times of crisis; calls for EU-level engagement with insurers, classification actors and shipping companies to ensure continuity of critical shipments and to prevent manipulation through coercion;

80. Calls for the enhanced use of shipping and container data to detect coercion, circumvention and illicit diversion, including improved EU capability to identify the use of anomalous routing patterns and transhipment hubs for sanctions evasion;

81. Welcomes the introduction of the EU crisis-mode customs and border ‘fast lane’ for critical inputs and essential goods as part of the redesign of the EU customs code, and notes that it is to be activated during major disruption events, with harmonised criteria to avoid fragmentation across Member States;

82. Calls for strengthened EU resilience against large-scale global navigation satellite system (GNSS) disruption, including jamming and spoofing affecting aviation, through the deployment of backup navigation protocols and secure positioning alternatives and robust detection and mitigation systems, including, where relevant, AI-supported capabilities for critical operations;

83. Warns that repeated drone incursions over major European airports have exposed serious vulnerabilities in European airspace and have led to significant disruption of air traffic and cargo routes; stresses that the protection of critical infrastructure, such as aviation hubs, must be treated as an economic security priority, requiring coordinated EU-level measures to prevent operational disruption of critical transport infrastructure;

84. Stresses that critical energy infrastructure, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, interconnectors, storage facilities or electricity grids, must be treated as economic security assets, with heightened scrutiny of ownership, control and key service providers, as provided for in the revised FDI Screening Regulation;

85. Calls for a targeted EU plan to reduce high-risk dependencies in the nuclear fuel cycle, including coordinated protocols on diversification and emergency procurement;

86. Notes that the recent large-scale blackout in the EU exposed vulnerabilities in both grid stability and the digital control systems underpinning critical energy infrastructure and generated immediate cascading economic effects, with risks of heightened dependency on third countries;

87. Underlines that the EU’s data centre capacity remains insufficient to meet rapidly growing demand for high-performance and advanced computing, with Europe accounting for only around 15 % of global hyperscale data centre capacity, while European demand is expanding at double-digit annual rates;

88. Underlines the importance of enhanced screening of ownership, operations and maintenance contracts with regard to undersea cables, landing stations and key internet hubs, which are strategic assets;

89. Calls for targeted protection against hostile acquisitions of strategic digital start-ups, including the screening of minority stakes, convertible instruments and intellectual property transfer arrangements, while ensuring adequate high-level channels for EU investment;

90. Notes with concern that, according to the second report on Member States’ progress in implementing the EU toolbox on 5G cybersecurity, 14 Member States have yet to implement restrictions on high-risk suppliers, creating significant security vulnerabilities; welcomes the risk-based approach and the stricter enforcement outlined in the proposal for a revision of the Cybersecurity Act for high-risk cases;

91. Stresses that strengthening the EU’s economic security requires EU companies in leading-edge technologies to be safeguarded from coercion and supported through the promotion of a level playing field;

92. Underlines that the EU’s digital regulatory framework is a fundamental pillar of its sovereignty; emphasises that the enforcement of this framework must remain unaffected by external pressure or threats of retaliatory measures arising from trade disputes;

93. Welcomes the upcoming proposals for an EU quantum act, a cloud and AI development act and a revision of the Chips Act; underlines that the effectiveness of these will depend on a strong trade and investment dimension, including measures to support scale-up and market deployment and facilitate access to global value chains, as well as partnerships with like-minded countries;

94. Recognises critical medicine shortages as an economic security vulnerability; calls for targeted trade and procurement tools to secure continuity of supply of essential medicines, their active substances and key inputs during emergencies;

95. Calls for priority mitigation of dependencies in active pharmaceutical ingredients, starting materials and key precursors where production is concentrated and export restrictions are plausible, including diversified supply chains;

96. Calls for EU mapping and mitigation of single-source dependencies in the manufacturing of medical devices, in vitro medical devices and their key components, and stresses the need for targeted diversification of manufacturing and the scaling-up of domestic production;

97. Calls for the risk-based protection of health data infrastructure and cloud services supporting healthcare systems, including continuity requirements and safeguards against hostile access or disruption;

98. Stresses that the flow of counterfeit medical products from third countries undermines security and public trust; calls for stronger cooperation on customs enforcement to reinforce the traceability requirements laid down in the Falsified Medicines Directive;

99. Stresses that strengthening and completing the capital market union and mobilising European private savings towards strategic industries could reduce reliance on external financing and prevent the loss of control over critical assets and technologies;

100. Underlines that financial messaging systems, including SWIFT, constitute critical infrastructure for the functioning of the global financial system and the EU’s external trade; notes that past instances of geopolitical tensions and sanctions regimes have demonstrated the implications of access to such systems; stresses the importance of ensuring the resilience, autonomy and legal certainty of the EU’s financial infrastructure, including through safeguards against undue external interference or disruptions that could affect the continuity of economic activity;

VII. Multilateral engagement and partnerships

101. Reaffirms the EU’s commitment to a rules-based multilateral trading system, with the WTO as the most developed framework for managing global economic interdependency and addressing economic security risks in a predictable and non-discriminatory manner;

102. Regrets, however, the fact that the WTO, in its current form, fails to address asymmetries among its members in terms of market openness and commitment to fair competition, and has a dysfunctional dispute settlement system; stresses that meaningful WTO reform, including the restoration of a fully functioning dispute settlement system, is essential to address systemic risks, curb unfair practices and prevent the escalation of trade disputes; acknowledges that, pending such reform, the EU must strengthen its own capacity to act autonomously and respond effectively to economic security risks, rising tariffs and a lack of reciprocity in market openness; believes that the EU should take the lead in establishing a coalition of like-minded middle powers with a clear framework for collective response and mutual assistance in cases of economic coercion;

103. Notes with interest the position set out by the Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, Maroš Šefčovič, on the need to reassess the ‘most favoured nation’ principle in light of the fact that certain WTO members have dramatically expanded their share of global trade while keeping their own markets relatively closed; calls for an assessment of how the ‘most favoured nation’ principle might better reflect the realities of the current trading environment;

104. Encourages closer and more structured cooperation with trusted partners and like-minded economies to build networked resilience against disruptions to trade and supply, including through trusted supplier networks for critical technologies and infrastructure, which should go beyond technical compliance by incorporating non-technical governance-based criteria that address systemic risks posed by suppliers under foreign state influence, and through coordinated preparedness, mutual support arrangements, and complementary approaches to stockpiling, responding to crises and protecting critical supply chains; calls on the Commission to ensure that the experiences of partners that have been subject to economic security risks are systematically reflected in the EU’s economic security assessments, preparedness planning and external coordination;

105. Welcomes the economic security initiatives developed within the G7; calls on the Commission to ensure that the EU plays a proactive and visible role in implementing and following up on these initiatives, while ensuring coherence between G7 commitments and the EU’s own economic security toolbox;

106. Insists on the crucial role of Parliament, and in particular its Committee on International Trade, in the democratic scrutiny of economic security-related measures with trade and investment implications, including at all stages of their design, implementation and review in order to ensure transparency, accountability and informed parliamentary oversight; asks the Commission to give the Committee on International Trade access to all the relevant documents relating to the implementation of the Economic Security Strategy, in line with interinstitutional best practice on access to documents; calls for the Committee on International Trade to be included in the economic security network proposed in the joint communication of 3 December 2025; highlights the need to maintain regular structured dialogue with Parliament on economic security priorities, risks and mitigation strategies;

107. Calls on the Commission to propose an institutional and governance framework that allows a comprehensive economic security strategy to be developed and implemented with Parliament and the Council and all other relevant public and private stakeholders;

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108. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Commission and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

The European Union’s prosperity, social model and global influence are founded on openness, competitiveness and deep integration into the world economy. Trade and investment have long been engines of growth, innovation and stability. At the same time, recent years have demonstrated that economic interdependency can be weaponised, disrupted or exploited in ways that directly affect Europe’s security, resilience and strategic autonomy.

The COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, repeated disruptions to global transport routes, and the increasing use of economic coercion have exposed structural vulnerabilities in supply chains, access to critical inputs and key infrastructure. These developments reflect a lasting transformation of the international environment, characterised by intensified geopolitical rivalry and systemic competition. In this context, economic security has become an essential dimension of the Union’s overall security and foreign policy.

This own-initiative report sets out the European Parliament’s position in light of the Joint Communication of December 2025 on Strengthening EU economic security. It aims to respond to this evolving risk landscape by reaffirming that openness to trade and investment remains the Union’s primary source of strength, rejecting protectionism and economic isolation as automatic responses to geopolitical uncertainty. Instead, it promotes diversification, competitiveness and deeper integration within the single market as the most effective and sustainable foundations for resilience. Multiple, balanced and rules-based interdependencies with reliable partners are essential to reducing strategic vulnerabilities while preserving economic dynamism.

Trade agreements and strategic partnerships play a central role in this approach. Beyond their traditional market access function, they are increasingly instruments for promoting supply-chain transparency, fair competition, access to critical raw materials and regulatory cooperation. The report therefore calls for an ambitious and coherent trade agenda that supports resilience while maintaining high standards and legal certainty for economic operators.

At the same time, the report recognises that diversification alone is not sufficient to address certain high-risk dependencies and strategic exposures. In certain cases, targeted mitigating measures are necessary to safeguard essential Union interests. Such measures must remain proportionate, evidence-based and subject to continuous review. Similarly, avoiding fragmentation, overregulation and unnecessary administrative burdens is crucial to preserving Europe’s competitiveness and investment attractiveness.

Effective economic security also depends on the credible enforcement of existing rules. Delayed or inconsistent application of trade defence, enforcement and other instruments weakens deterrence and undermines confidence. The report therefore stresses the need for timely, predictable and coordinated enforcement, combined with a gradual and reversible escalation framework that preserves legal certainty and room for de-escalation.

Investment flows are another key dimension of economic security. While foreign and outbound investment are vital drivers of innovation and growth, they may also generate strategic risks when sensitive technologies, infrastructure or decision-making capacities become vulnerable to external influence. The report highlights the importance of robust and harmonised implementation of the EU’s foreign direct investment screening framework, as well as systematic risk assessments related to outbound investment and technology transfers. Particular attention is given to advanced digital, industrial, space and energy technologies that underpin the Union’s long-term competitiveness.

The report further underlines that economic security cannot be achieved in isolation. A strong, predictable and rules-based multilateral trading system remains the ideal framework for managing global interdependency. The European Union must continue to lead efforts to reform and strengthen the World Trade Organization. However, fostering closer cooperation with trusted partners is essential to building networked resilience, enhancing preparedness and sharing best practices against economic coercion.

Finally, the report emphasises the importance of democratic accountability and transparency. Economic security measures often involve far-reaching implications for businesses, workers and consumers. The European Parliament, and particularly the Committee on International Trade, must therefore play a central role in scrutinising their design, implementation and impact. Effective parliamentary oversight is essential to ensure that economic security policies remain balanced, proportionate and consistent with the Union’s values and legal framework.

This report seeks to contribute to a coherent European approach that strengthens economic security without compromising openness, competitiveness and the rules-based international order. It promotes a pragmatic, risk-based and forward-looking strategy that reinforces Europe’s resilience while preserving the foundations of its prosperity and global engagement.

ANNEX: DECLARATION OF INPUT

Pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure, the rapporteur declares that he included in his report input on matters pertaining to the subject of the file that he received, in the preparation of the report, prior to the adoption thereof in committee, from the following interest representatives falling within the scope of the Interinstitutional Agreement on a mandatory transparency register, or from the following representatives of public authorities of third countries, including their diplomatic missions and embassies:

1. Interest representatives falling within the scope of the Interinstitutional Agreement on a mandatory transparency register

Konrad Adenauer Stiftung

Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies

ASML

EFPIA

Vestas

ACS Group

VDA

Spanish Chamber of Commerce

Naturgy

Navantia

CEOE

2. Representatives of public authorities of third countries, including their diplomatic missions and embassies

Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union

Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to the Kingdom of Spain

The list above is drawn up under the exclusive responsibility of the rapporteur.

Where natural persons are identified in the list by their name, by their function or by both, the rapporteur declares that he has submitted to the natural persons concerned the European Parliament’s Data Protection Notice No 484 (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/data-protect/index.do), which sets out the conditions applicable to the processing of their personal data and the rights linked to that processing.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION BY THE COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE

Date adopted

6.5.2026

Result of final vote

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26

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7

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL BY THE COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE

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