EU infrastructure plan still a daydream

The 10th year of President Xi Jinping's proposal for the Belt and Road Initiative is also a time to reflect on what the European Union has done to support or complement the initiative, or to promote a complementary or alternative infrastructure development plan. While a number of European countries, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, have signed bilateral Belt and Road memorandums with China, the EU has by and large shown reluctance or a lack of ambition to come up with a comparable proposal.

Why? Not only would it be in the EU's best interest to help develop Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but the Belt and Road approach would also help solve some of the domestic problems of Europe's most developed countries. For even the West, once the model of modernity, has now squandered many of its leading advantages and is increasingly suffering from crumbling and outdated infrastructure, prolonged recessions and a decline in average living standards.

EU's response mixture of hesitance, convergence

The EU's response to the Belt and Road Initiative has been unusually hesitant. It took the EU several years after the launch of the initiative in 2013 to announce its own "Connecting Europe and Asia — Building Blocks for an EU Strategy", and issued "Action Plan" of extremely modest scope in 2018.

The EU Chamber of Commerce in China published a survey on European Involvement in China's Belt and Road Initiative in 2020, which quite bluntly states: "The EU needs to present a credible alternative by putting meat on the bones on its EU-Asia Connectivity Plan. Little progress has been made since the plan was announced in September 2018."

Comparing the two initiatives, the same report revealed that they are worlds apart: "Although the EU Connectivity approach emphasizes openness, transparency, sustainability and high standards, it pales in comparison to the BRI as it currently remains all but unknown, underdeveloped and reactive, and is slow and arduous in project execution. For all its shortcomings, the BRI is fully developed and proactively seeks out partners and projects, delivers results quickly, and is on the lips of leaders across the globe."

Recall that in May 2017, when 29 heads of state and top officials from more than 130 countries and 70 international organizations gathered in Beijing for the historic first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, many leaders from European countries such as Italy, Greece, Spain, Poland, Serbia, Switzerland and Hungary were also represented. It was a moment of convergence.

However, the EU member states were prohibited by the EU leadership from signing the final joint communique. And in 2018, 27 of the 28 EU ambassadors to China issued a statement rejecting the Belt and Road Initiative because they felt they were being treated unequally. Some countries came under enormous pressure. When Italy, not only a founding member of the EU but also a core G7 member state, signed the Belt and Road Initiative memorandum to express its willingness to cooperate in the joint development of Italian ports and other infrastructure facilities, the government was quickly accused of selling out to China, and China was denounced for pursuing only its own interests.

In March 2021, during a seminar on the Belt and Road Initiative, the German Ministry of Economics reviewed the EU-Asia connectivity plan and stated that only a "mere exchange of experience" on infrastructure projects had taken place with China, which "so far has not resulted in any joint ventures".

Even with Japan, with which the only "connectivity partnership" was established at the end of 2019, no concrete projects were planned. The EU and Japan were only negotiating the compatibility of standards on transparency and sustainability. Is this really all the EU could offer?

One of Germany's leading business newspapers, Handelsblatt, leaked information in May 2021 that the German government had become very concerned about the EU's "lack of ambition" in this regard, leaving the field entirely to China for infrastructure projects worldwide. An internal government paper allegedly stated that instead of pushing for a "visible and globally oriented EU connectivity strategy", the project was not getting off the ground due to the "reluctance of the EU Commission".

The EU-Asia connectivity strategy simply disappeared after that. Then came its supposed successor, "Global Gateway", presented by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Dec 1, 2021. According to the joint communication, the EU's commitment was to be expanded and better communicated, and the sum of €300 billion ($328.44 billion) to be allocated between 2021 and 2027. While some flagship projects were listed in March this year, the Global Gateway has already drawn criticism from a whole network of public interest groups from almost every EU country.

The European Network on Debt and Development has said in a report that the Global Gateway initiative is based on the assumption that it will mobilize or leverage resources from private investors. In addition, development funds are being redirected to achieve commercial competitiveness and geopolitical objectives, which goes against the principle of a publicly funded good for poverty alleviation.

Global Gateway funding is often tied to meeting the International Monetary Fund's conditions, such as lowering public sector wages. The group calls for the Global Gateway to be guided by a clear development rationale, meaningful contributions to poverty reduction and the fight against inequality. It says the Global Gateway should serve as a vision of people-centered development and address human welfare by investing in local infrastructure, decent job creation and economic growth, especially in light of the high indebtedness of African countries.

Werner Hoyer, president of the EU's development bank, the European Investment Bank, has published an alerting statement on the Global Gateway, saying the countries of the Global South no longer automatically follow Europe's path. In order to secure the open trade routes on which European economies, especially Germany, depend, Hoyer urged that the approved Global Gateway projects be implemented now to advance urgently needed infrastructure construction in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Ironically, the EIB chief admitted that "our European standards", especially supply chain laws, are perceived as paternalistic in the Global South and the term "regulatory imperialism" has become a household word. Europe, he said, which needs access to critical raw materials, must not behave like former European colonial masters. Building processing plants and paying attention to local energy needs could create more trust, he concluded in his remarkable statement.

'EU mindset' driving the tragic dysfunction

The reason why the EU leadership has not been able to come up with its own version of the Belt and Road Initiative has nothing to do with technicalities, but reveals a deeper flaw. Judging by some of the recent statements by EU leaders such as Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, or von der Leyen, it is what might be called the "EU mindset", with its contradictions, inconsistencies and frankly neo-colonial attitude, that is driving such tragic dysfunction.

Borrell's remarks at the European Diplomatic Academy in the fall of 2022 about Europe being an "idyllic garden" and the rest of the world mostly a "jungle", are far from the only instance that has caused much consternation. In a recent article for Le Journal du Dimanche on April 23, Borrell, channelling his imperial global ambitions, even called on European navies to patrol the Taiwan Strait "to show Europe's commitment to freedom of navigation in this absolutely crucial area". He declared that Taiwan is "clearly part of our geostrategic perimeter to guarantee peace".

Many also listened with some puzzlement to von der Leyen's speech on March 30, five days before her visit to China in which she questioned China on many fronts.

An EU leadership hell-bent on lecturing China and other countries on how to behave within a Western "rule-based order" in an outdated display of a Euro-centric, out-of-touch superiority complex will, of course, never come up with a grand vision to complement and cooperate with the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative. There is no way around it: all European countries must be invited individually to represent themselves as nations at the upcoming Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

And as many European governments as possible should sign new or expand existing memorandums and form a "European Belt and Road mechanism" outside the non-workable EU to communicate with China on joint project implementation. Expecting the EU's constructive cooperation and eventually the birth of the EU's infrastructure development initiative is a vain daydream.

The author is an independent researcher and analyst at the International Schiller Institute.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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