The EU’s Global Gateway initiative: the geopoliticization of development aid and foreign economic policy

Abstract

The European Union (EU) launched the Global Gateway initiative in 2021 as a strategic pivot in European approaches to development aid and foreign policy amid intensifying great power competition. This Special Issue examines the extent to which the Global Gateway constitutes a genuine geoeconomic innovation or consolidates and rebrands existing development policy with a new framing. Five years after its launch, contributors analyze three critical dimensions: the initiative’s novelty as an economic security instrument; its implications for intra-EU institutional balance between the Commission, Member States, and European Parliament; and its impact on the EU’s positioning in great power competition vis-à-vis China’s Belt and Road Initiative and U.S. infrastructure partnerships. Drawing on empirical analyses of flagship projects, financing mechanisms, Team Europe coordination, and perceptions across the Global South, this collection advances understanding of the EU’s geoeconomic turn and its capacity to act as a geopolitical actor in global infrastructure finance.

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