The EU is responding with a concrete project to the Chinese Belt & Road initiative. Beijing’s major infrastructure project aims to connect Asia with European markets, but is widely seen as a means to provide China with political influence internationally. The European Council has a concrete draft of conclusions reached by EU governments. According to them, after the Commission gives the green light to these conclusions, the next nine months will be the time to compile a list of “high-impact and visible projects” to rival the Beijing scheme, reports Politico.eu .
One of the challenges for Europeans will be an equally attractive name like “Belt & Road” and a logo.
It seems like a game that Brussels is playing to reach China. The Beijing Initiative started about eight years ago and was conceived as an alternative to the former Silk Road. The initiative costs $ 2.5 trillion and enables Beijing to expand its maritime and energy networks across the globe. The Chinese strategy has been accompanied by harsh criticism. China has been accused of putting partner countries, including Montenegro and Sri Lanka, in debt, through jointly unstable economic projects.
G7 leaders agreed last month on a democratic alternative to the Chinese initiative, and draft conclusions from the EU Council suggested that the EU is not entirely convinced by the way China has described its project.
Africa and Latin America, in EU plans
The EU seeks to go beyond the EU-Asia 2018 alliance strategy and aims to build an EU “globally connected ” which will allow the bloc to turn its attention to Africa and Latin America, the main destinations for Chinese investment. The Council is expected to ask the Commission, the executive branch of the EU, to develop what it has called a unifying narrative of the actions taken by all relevant actors.
“This narrative should include the brand name and well-known logo developed jointly with the Member States and should be supported by a public visibility campaign“, It is said in a statement.
So far, there is no price for the new EU scheme, but the Council will call for a mix of public funding and private investment. It will urge the Commission to “present coherent and effective financing schemes to stimulate sustainable bond investments”, including EU-level financial instruments and member states, export credits, loans and guarantees, and commitment of the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
