In the most developed countries, it irritates us that we lose a few minutes of mobile connection, that the train is delayed, or that an appointment at the health center is changed. It does not occur to us to ask our neighbor if they have drinking water at home or electricity to read or study when it gets dark. We forget the link between infrastructure and aspects such as security, mobility, cohesion, equality, productivity or economic growth. Everything that wires an essential part of the daily well-being of millions of people.
However, the reality is very different for a large majority of the world’s population. The UN predicts that there will be 2 billion people in 2030 without regular access to basic infrastructure such as drinking water, sanitation and electricity. The following calculation helps us imagine the financial magnitude of the challenge. The Asian Development Bank points out that it would be necessary to invest around 1,500 billion euros in Asia until 2030 if the region wants to maintain the level of economic growth, face challenges such as poverty and respond effectively to climate change. Calculations like this are repeated in other regions and lead to two conclusions. The first, that the infrastructure gap will continue to increase. The second, the very limited number of countries with the financial capacity to undertake this type of investment.
In 2021, the G-7 finally recognized the magnitude of the problem and the cost of its ramifications. He also saw a good opportunity to revive his waning prominence on the international scene. The possibility of new health crises, the progressive weakening of supply chains, the challenge of facing more recurrent and extreme environmental disasters and, in general, a scenario of growing instability encouraged the creation of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII); the joint commitment to invest 600 billion in energy, digital, health and environmental infrastructure until 2027.
He Global Gateway born as a result of said agreement. It is the European response through a renewed effort of investments and alliances. In society it is usually presented as the European formula to compete with the powerful Chinese New Silk Road. However, it actually hides something much more valuable: a new recipe with extraordinary transformative potential, but that depends on five ingredients that do not go together easily. First, that the EU’s geostrategic proposal coincides with the needs and preferences of our partner countries. Second, that the main actors involved – foreign policy, international cooperation and the private sector – converge in routines, interests and objectives. Third, that the Europeans themselves, through their infinite list of embassies, agencies and banks, demonstrate that they want and know how to work better together. Fourth, that our investment proposal; a mosaic of financial contributions of diverse nature, is capable of mobilizing funds with the same effectiveness as other global powers. Finally, it confirms that it is a formula based on values, as it presents itself, respectful of principles such as good governance and transparency and with the development agenda commitments acquired by the EU.
There are still many loose ends to be tied up, few know the strategy and, of those few, a part has shown recurring skepticism, calling it a mere relabeling of what the EU had been doing for years. However, despite the enormous opacity that continues to characterize the progress of the Global Gateway, progress is visible in essential areas. For example, better knowledge of needs in partner countries; an adequate correlation between the first projects presented, the priorities of the Global Gateway and the relevant EU policies; the launch of the Business Advisory Group and the successful EU-Latin America and Caribbean summit. Finally, a major Global Gateway event took place last week, where European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen was expected to confirm that she had a genie in the lamp. Or, put another way, that the Global Gateway formula works.
Spain does not have a large international development bank and, what is more worrying, a deeply demoralizing inclination towards immobility prevails in some of its foreign action, incapable of uniting and energizing the country’s technical and financial potential.
Now it’s time to get to work. I emphasize that we are here because the Global Gateway is not the monopoly of Brussels, but rather an effort in which we all participate. And that is where the big question comes: how does Spain participate in the Global Gateway?
The case of Spain is paradoxical. Together with Portugal, we are the natural interlocutors between the EU and Latin America, a region for which the Global Gateway fits like a glove. The reunion through EU-LAC summit in July and the relaunch of relations has been staged in forums and meetings with striking participation from countries, financiers and companies. Something that suggests one of those moments that should not be missed. Unfortunately, it catches us lame. Unlike other European countries, especially France and Germany, Spain is lacking the infrastructure and institutional and financial muscle that leads, promotes and accompanies this field of work. We do not have a large international development bank and, what is more worrying, a deeply demoralizing inclination to immobility prevails in some of the foreign action, incapable of uniting and energizing the great capacity and technical and financial potential of the country, and that It continues to put us at a disadvantage compared to our surrounding countries.
The Global Gateway offers Spain a double opportunity. On the one hand, actively contributing to the needs and commitments of development and rewire in a more stable way the link between the EU and Spain with other regions, especially with Latin America, giving it continuity and a very different horizon from that of recent years, characterized by such a dormant presence. On the other hand, encouraging the modernization of a part, even if it is small, of Spanish foreign action. Open a space with a new and differentiated identity, convinced in its ambition to identify innovative solutions and join forces in an area that, for our own good and that of those who come, must not stop gaining prominence.
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