The Security Blind Spot in the EU’s Enlargement Strategy

Czech EU affairs insider on the pitfalls of the EU investment screening mechanism

10 November 2026

Brussels now sets the enlargement calendar and has a screening tool to keep hostile capital out of strategic sectors. But the puzzle has a missing economic security piece.

Foreign direct investment screening is the main tool through which economic security can enter the EU enlargement agenda. In the candidate countries, however, it will only work if Brussels helps replace the investment it asks them to refuse.

Visegrad Insight spoke with a Czech EU affairs insider Žiga Faktor at a closed-door event by the European Policy Centre devoted to the new EU Enlargement strategy – on the day it was announced and confirmed that policy analysis is correct. Namely, that the EU needs to chip in for real to make the economic security count outside the Brussels bubble. Faktor, who works in the office of Miriam Lexmann, expressed his personal opinions, which do not represent the positions of the European Parliament.

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