A global gateway for creating links, not dependencies

At the leaders meeting in Porto in May this year, the European Union (EU) and India adopted a connectivity partnership, expanding our cooperation in the areas of digital, energy, transport and people-to-people. Our partnership is focused on transparency, sustainability, equity and inclusiveness, to create links, not dependencies, for the benefit of both regions.

What is there and more

With India, we already have a strong ongoing cooperation on sustainable infrastructure. For example, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has funded more than €4.31 billion, including important connectivity projects in the country, since 1993. New operations are in the pipeline, as are further EIB investments in the urban metro system.

The European Union is working in the same spirit all over the world. Earlier this year, the European Union and Brazil inaugurated a new fiber-optic cable to move terabytes of data between our two continents faster and more securely. It helps scientists from Europe and Latin America work together on issues ranging from climate modeling to disaster mitigation. The cable begins in the European Union, where the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has become the gold standard of data protection, and ends in Brazil, which recently introduced a similar law. The cable links the two continents together creating a data economy that respects the privacy of its citizens’ data. This is how Europe approaches connectivity – bringing partners closer together without creating unwanted dependencies.

in Africa

Last week, the EIB and the cooperation agencies of France, Spain and Germany joined the European Commission in Togo to identify projects to finance in the energy, transport and digital sectors. During the mission, the EIB signed a €100 million line of credit to support African small and medium businesses to recover from the pandemic and to seize growth opportunities from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

These are examples of what we call Team Europe, which brings together everyone working with our partners to support the green and digital transition.

Since the inception of the Von der Leyen Commission, the twin transitions of green and digital have been at the fore in Europe. With the new Global Gateway Strategy, the EU continues to promote the green and digital transition globally.

In a world of interdependence, where supply chains are showing their fragility, we know how important connectivity is. We have also seen that the links connecting us can also be made weapons. Data flows, energy supplies, rare earths, vaccines and semiconductors are all tools of power in today’s world. That’s why we need to ensure that global connectivity and access to these flows is based on rules and international standards.

While the flow of goods may be ideologically neutral, the rules that govern them are tied to political values. Europe and other democracies, especially in the digital domain, must ensure that future standards reflect our core values.

No ‘debt trap’

Europe wants to reduce excessive dependence and be more autonomous in areas such as the production of computer chips. If all of our partners have options to make their own investment decisions, our autonomy is strengthened. The calling card of Europe and our partner countries is to offer financial, social and environmentally sustainable connectivity to meet infrastructure investment needs. No ‘white elephants’ and no ‘debt trap’, but projects that are sustainable and meet the needs of the local population.

For Europe to master the connectivity challenge, it needs not only principles and frameworks, but also adequate resources and clear priorities.

First, we will use the resources of Team Europe, the European Union and its member countries in a smarter, more efficient way. The Global Gateway will raise more than €300 billion in public and private funds for global infrastructure development between 2021 and 2027, funding the climate and digital transition as well as health, education and research. We will mobilize half of the investment with the help of the EU budget and the other half indicates planned investments from European financial institutions and development finance institutions of member states.

We have remodeled our financial instruments to provide the firepower that can blend loans and grants and provide the guarantees we need today. We have put in place mechanisms to filter out unusually low tenders and protect offers that benefit from distorted foreign subsidies that undermine equal opportunity. We will also ensure that EU internal programs – InvestEU, our research programme, Horizon Europe and the Connecting Europe facility – will support member countries’ development banks, national promotional banks and export credit agencies as well as Global Gateway.

an export credit facility

Of course, private sector capital will continue to be the largest source of investment in infrastructure. That is why we are exploring the possibility of establishing a European Export Credit Facility to supplement the existing export credit regime at the Member State level. This will help ensure a more level playing field for EU businesses in third-country markets, where they will increasingly have to compete with foreign competitors who have great support from their governments.

Second, the Global Gateway has identified a number of key projects on priorities. These include the expansion of the Bella (Building the Europe Link to Latin America) cable to the rest of Latin America as part of the EU-LAC Digital Alliance; Expansion of the Trans-European network to improve transport links with Eastern Partnership and Western Balkan countries and increase funding for the Erasmus+ student exchange program around the world. In Africa, with the support of new strategic transport corridors, the EU will raise €2.4 billion for Sub-Saharan Africa and more than €1 billion for North Africa to support the production of renewable energy and renewable hydrogen, which can help meet the needs of the European Union. Estimated demand for clean energy and helping partners do so.

At heart, Global Gateway is about demonstrating how democratic values ​​provide certainty and fairness for investors, stability for partners, and long-term benefits for people around the world. The European Union and India can be leaders in this effort.

Josep Borrell Fontelles is the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-Chairman of the European Commission. Jutta Urpilainen is the European Commissioner for International Partnerships.