Global Gateway: The EU’s development strategy needs a revamp
"Global Gateway" is the EU’s €300 billion initiative to boost "smart, clean, and secure" links in digital, energy, and transport sectors worldwide, supporting emerging economies. Program's success depends on adopting new ideas, methods, and cutting bureaucracy to compete with global powers.
Global Gateway is the European Union's ambitious strategy to strengthen "smart, clean, and secure" connections in the digital, energy, and transport sectors worldwide. Designed to support development in emerging economies, the EU has committed to investing €300 billion in this initiative by 2027.
Whether the EU's Global Gateway will succeed in achieving its direct and indirect goals or follow the fate of earlier initiatives remains to be seen. However, Europe is finally recognizing that competing with other world powers requires new methods, fresh perspectives, innovative ideas, and less bureaucratic red tape.
Current issues with EU's development programs
The Czech Commissioner for International Partnership, Jozef Síkela, wants to strengthen European connections in the digital, transport, and energy sectors. A challenge that has not been tackled fully earlier, and with the crumbling rules-based international order, time is not on his side.
In the past, the fragmentation of the policies of the Member States and the Commission has led to difficulties in coordinating partnership efforts. This policy incoherence has been a hot issue in the past decade, with very few solutions in sight, which has impacted development efforts before.
This is not the first time the Commission has rethought its strategy for global partnerships. A 2022 study shows perfectly that effectiveness indicators deteriorated mainly due to budgetary constraints, reduced tolerance of risk coupled with pressure on aid programs to respond to domestic political priorities in donor countries, and little interest or incentive at the field level to consider effectiveness when planning and implementing projects, to mention a few.
Making Global Gateway more effective and competitive
In short, Mr. Síkela’s task is to make the program more effective while also establishing it as a trusted initiative with a quality reputation. The task is quite demanding, considering past performance and the pressing need for the EU to become globally competitive.
Síkela, who worked in the banking sector before becoming the Minister of Industry and Trade in Czechia, is hopefully the right person to utilize resources from EU countries, development banks, and the private sector to support the initiative.
He also emphasizes partnerships that contribute to sustainable growth and the United Nations' 2030 Agenda, which might be an even more significant challenge due to the new American administration’s attitude towards UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Transatlantic differences aside, the challenges China’s Belt and Road Initiative brings are even more significant. China is already interfering economically and politically around the world with the initiative's help, which includes massive loans, grand-scale investments, fast implementation, and strong government backing.
To counter this, Global Gateway must overcome red tape, mobilize private investment, and ensure the projects are implemented and executed promptly. The EU might also have to consider balancing its commitment to sustainability with geopolitical pragmatism to avoid isolation. Overall, the Global Gateway must be regarded as a good economic opportunity with flexible partnerships in opposition to anti-globalist, nationalist, and populist governments and powers worldwide.
Downsizing on bureaucracy
With the focus being on efficiency and delivery, the Directorate-General for International Partnerships is decreasing its size by reducing its numbers from around 100 delegations to 18 hubs globally.
As they argue in an internal document of the Commission:
“the current set-up is not fit for delivering on Global Gateway and its investment packages, and developing portfolio linked to the growing importance of the external dimension of EU policies and its impact on the partner countries”
Another reason for downsizing is pure geopolitics. The new Commission has understood that efficiency is delivered by refocusing on strategic areas and centralizing decision-making in Brussels.
