Tribune. The European Union (EU) unveiled the 1er December its plan to support the development of infrastructures in the world: the Global Gateway. This plan aims to mobilize 300 billion euros between 2021 and 2027 in connectivity projects around the world, and in particular in the fields of digital technology, climate and energy, transport, health, education and research.
The rationale for this initiative is clear: the world needs major investments in infrastructure. The World Bank believes that, in order to achieve the main global goals (such as climate and environmental protection, universal access to energy, water and sanitation, greater mobility, better food security), the world must invest in infrastructure around 1.3 trillion euros per year.
China understood the strategic importance of developing global infrastructure ten years ago and in 2013 launched the famous Belt and Road initiative. In order to offer an alternative to the Chinese approach to global infrastructure development, G7 leaders pledged in June 2021 to develop new infrastructure partnerships “Based on values, high standards and transparency”.
Use resources more strategically
As the United States launched its Build Back Better World initiative [« reconstruire un monde meilleur « ] and the UK its Clean Green initiative, the EU unveiled its Global Gateway. The European Commission presented the initiative as “A model of how Europe can build more resilient connections with the world”, but critics quickly dismissed it, saying it represents a repackaging of existing instruments rather than new EU money.
This point of view misses the point, however. EU member states are already the world’s leading donors of official development assistance (ODA). In grant equivalent (a methodology in which only loan grant elements are shown, instead of their face value), the EU disbursed € 66.8 billion in 2020, or 46% of the world total.
Thereby, what Europe really needs is not primarily to add new resources, but to use existing resources more strategically. To put things better in perspective, between 2014 and 2018, the EU and its member states provided around 350 billion euros in ODA grant equivalent, while the Belt and Road initiative (to which the Global Gateway seeks somehow to oppose) would have provided around 200 to 400 billion euros in loans during the same period.
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