Global Gateway, launched by President von der Leyen in December 2021, is the EU’s contribution to narrowing the global investment gap, supporting global economic recovery and accompanying the twin green and digital transitions beyond European borders. It is value-based strategy to boost smart, clean and secure links in digital, energy and transport sectors, and to strengthen health, education and research systems across the world.
The EU’s Global Gateway strategy will be rolled out in a dynamic geopolitical context characterised by increased power competition and confrontation. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine already has a far-reaching impact on global connectivity, from the EU’s energy supply routes and the movement of goods across the Eurasian landmass to a possible food crisis worldwide.
In this new geopolitical environment, the EU will have to navigate carefully between cooperation and competition. The overall geopolitical objective of the Global Gateway is to maintain, and where possible expand, political and economic openness through partnerships.
This session was a discussion on the geopolitics of Global Gateway. Speakers were invited to reflect on how increasing global connectivity in a sustainable manner can help tackle today’s global challenges, and on the geopolitical implications of this new approach.
Synopsis
With panellists coming from different regions (South America/Brazil, Africa, Japan and Europe), this session discussed the opportunities of the Global Gateway Strategy and its geopolitical relevance. The interventions stressed the correlation between having strong relations inside the different countries of each specific region and a good partnership with the EU. They also highlighted the need for real strategic partnerships, in which both partners were placed on an equal level, to avoid the risk of interdependencies.
