European Union foreign ministers have agreed to set up a global infrastructure plan connecting Europe to the rest of the world in a move that many are seeing as a response to China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Meeting of EU economic and financial ministers at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, 12 July 2021. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock
Meeting of EU economic and financial ministers at the European Council headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, 12 July 2021. Photo: Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock
The project, named 'A Globally Connected Europe' and set to launch next year, represents the bloc's latest step after a similar pledge by the G7 last month and partnership deals with Japan and India.
Diplomats in Europe and beyond have been keeping a keen eye on China's BRI. Launched in 2013, the BRI is one of President Xi Jinping's flagstone policies that seeks to recreate a 21st Century version of the ancient Silk Road along which goods were traded between Europe and the Far East for centuries.
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The project involves a vast number of infrastructure and development projects stretching from Asia to Europe and into Africa and has given Beijing a significant boost in its political and economic influence.
However, it has created unease among politicians in Europe and the US with concerns over debt traps and the scale of investment in critical infrastructure across the world.
"We see China using economic and financial means to increase its political influence everywhere in the world. It's useless moaning about this, we must offer alternatives," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters at a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.
"It is important that the European Union ... coordinates them very closely with the United States," he added.
The bloc has already signed agreements with Japan and India, in September 2019 and May 2021 respectively, which will connect energy, transport and digital projects in both Asia and Europe. Both Tokyo and New Delhi are concerned about China's rise with officials arguing that the BRI makes poorer nations vulnerable as they take on large debts which risk them becoming beholden to Beijing.
The G7, which met in Cornwall, England last month, is also looking to make infrastructure partnerships more transparent through a combination of development bank loans, guarantees to private companies and by offering Western government expertise.
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European officials say that the latest casualty of the Chinese debt trap is Montenegro, which is a member of NATO and aspires to join the EU. The Balkan nation borrowed almost $1 billion from China in 2014 in order to pay for the construction of a 41 km (25 mile) highway, and the loan is now threatening to push the country into bankruptcy. Negotiations with Western banks are currently underway to refinance or swap the debt, according to a report in Reuters earlier this month.
'A Globally Connected Europe' contains no mention of China or the BRI, and Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn warned at the meeting that the bloc should not make China an adversary, adding that the country buys more German-made vehicles every year than Germany does.
Nonetheless, Reuters quoted an unnamed EU diplomat as saying the eight-page strategy document "had China written all over it".
Since launching the BRI in 2013, China has embarked on infrastructure projects in more than 60 countries, creating land and sea links with Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
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Beijing has consistently rejected claims that the project is a power play, insisting that the BRI is focused on global development and
According to reports in EURACTIV, the final version of the EU strategy will be unveiled during Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's State of the Union address this autumn.
The success of the project and how much the final draft will be watered down are topics of great speculation across the bloc. While both France and Germany have pushed for a unified EU strategy, some experts say that differing economic priorities and national interests will inevitably dilute the project.
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