European Economic Security Through Connectivity: The Geoeconomic Potential of the Global Gateway

This paper examines the geoeconomic potential of the Global Gateway (GG), the European Union’s (EU) connectivity strategy. Launched in 2021, this initiative aims to mobilise circa 300 billion euros in investments in physical and digital infrastructure in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to promote sustainable development and connectivity. Mainstream analyses correctly point out that the GG constitutes an alternative to the larger and more expensive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) advanced by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, such unidimensional views overlook how the GG fits in the broader scope of the EU’s geoeconomic turn. On the one hand, the GG figures as one of the key instruments of the 2023 European Economic Security Strategy, standing beside investment screening and industrial policy. On the other hand, with the GG, the EU joins a selective club of great powers in leveraging connectivity strategies as an instrument of economic statecraft. Distinctively from other (geo)economic instruments, these initiatives affect international economic relations more broadly. This research consists of an exploratory effort in two directions. First, it seeks to identify which European geoeconomic objectives the GG seeks to attain, taking economic security as a starting point. Documental research and content analysis of official European policy documents constitute the primary means of achieving this first goal. Second, it seeks to identify how the GG manifests EU power in the international system. Preliminary findings suggest that the concessional nature of GG projects, which are linked to the adoption of European values and technical standards, limitedly manifest European geoeconomic power. Competition from the PRC and persistent distrust from partner countries may further jeopardize the full geoeconomic realization of the European GG.