Opportunities, prospects and critical issues of the European Global Gateway, the 300 billion euro infrastructure plan proposed by the European Commission and with an important focus on Africa, were reviewed and discussed by experts and stakeholders during a meeting organized on 24 October at Spazio Europa of Rome by the European Council on Foreign Relations (Ecfr) with the support of Africa and Business. The event was held in conjunction with a forum that brought together representatives of the EU Commission and some countries from the Global South and the European neighborhood affected by the plan for two days in Brussels.
The Global Gateway, which in Africa aims to mobilize 150 billion in public and private investments to reduce the infrastructure gap, “will allow the European Union to be competitive, but is also a tool to relaunch its image and relations with a of the world, establishing an equal relationship”, said Arturo Varvelli, director of the Rome office of Ecfr, who opened the event “Global Gateway Africa Geopolitics, investments and prospects for Italy”. On a geopolitical level, in fact, according to Varvelli, the plan comes to its implementation at a time when the Sahel in particular is experiencing a new anti-colonial wave which the European powers are feeling. For this reason, he explained, it is an opportunity to give new impetus to the European positioning. Antonio Parenti, director of the European Commission’s representation in Italy, underlined that the Global Gateway represents a fundamental paradigm shift and demonstrates that it is “impossible to go in no particular order as has been done up to now in the field of development policies. It is also important to avoid competition.” Parenti therefore anticipated the upcoming launch of a portal dedicated to monitoring the first 89 projects in the pipeline.
Ambassador Giuseppe Mistretta, director of Sub-Saharan Africa at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, agreed with this analysis: “The EU of 27 is still a number one player in Africa, with all its defects” he said. And on Italy: “The report people to people that our country has in Africa, no one has: it is based on aid workers and universities. There is an extraordinary feeling that must be maintained and will be maintained.” Carlo Corazza, director of the Italian office of the European Parliament (EP), spoke about the opportunities for Italy of the European plan, according to which the Global Gateway can respond, in parallel to the Mattei Plan for Africa launched by the Meloni government, to many important challenges “such as migratory flows, access to raw materials and climate change”. To make it work, he added, “but real money and guarantees are needed for private individuals who want to invest in Africa. This is an objective priority for the European Parliament.”
The private sector constitutes a fundamental component for the implementation of the Global Gateway, creating opportunities for Italian companies both in the infrastructure construction phase and thanks to the opening of new markets in various sectors, releasing the full potential of the African common market in definition phase. This was mentioned in particular by Eugenio Bettella, founding partner of the law firm Bergs & More with offices in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Bettella, in his speech spoke about financing methods and the importance of public-private partnerships.
Africa is a land of opportunities, rather than problems for private individuals, also from the perspective of Letizia Pizzi, director of Confindustria Assafrica & Mediterraneo: “Our experience says that working in Africa is possible, obviously helping companies, but with the Global Gateway we can have more tools.” The opportunities of the Global Gateway for logistics in the Mediterranean were instead at the center of the speech by Massimo Deandreis, general director of Srm, a Study Center connected to the Intesa San Paolo Group – Deandreis highlighted the importance of investing with the Global Gateway in ports and in the reduction of value chains on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. “Only in this way,” he said, “will the European neighborhood projection be realized and the trade and energy flows of the future will grow”. Enrico Maria Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle, an Italian company that builds and manages submarine cables and data centers, illustrated the presence of the Telecom company in the region and in North Africa and the Middle East, for example with the BlueMed cable which from Genoa will cross the Strait of Messina and the Mediterranean towards the Red Sea to connect the Persian Gulf and Mumbai.
The Global Gateway is an opportunity to inaugurate a new model of cooperation that better responds to African needs while maintaining European interests firm, summarized Maddalena Procopio, Senior policy fellow of Ecfr’s Africa Program. The plan, Procopio further explained, “arises from the crisis of supply chains during the pandemic and has the aim of satisfying internal European needs for economic resilience by reducing supply chains”, but however it is still evolving and “needs greater coordination, dialogue and collaboration between institutions and private individuals”.
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Read the Zoom of Africa and Business on the opportunities in Africa linked to the European strategy of the Global Gateway: