IMEC is back in focus

IMEC India

The India-Middle East-Europe Corridor, now known as IMEC, is again in the foreground, this time on the occasion of the first EU-GCC summit held on 16 October 2024 in Brussels.

The slogan was first thrown by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who appeared on the floor of the UN General Assembly on September 27, 2024, brandishing the IMEC map.

Netanyahu IMEC

Addressing the EU-CSCP summit, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emphasised that the Gulf region “could become a clean energy hub, connecting Europe, Asia and Africa.”

She concluded: “That is why we are joining forces in ambitious projects like IMEC: the first-ever Economic Corridor, connecting India, the Middle East and Europe.”

In the same line as the Joint Declaration of the EU-CSCP Summit they were issued on October 16, 2024, which in point 19 emphasises that the two sides will strengthen their cooperation to promote sustainable investments in geographical and thematic areas of mutual interest, expressing the same time the of their readiness to explore their cooperation in relation to IMEC and the EU Global Gateway.

And all this at a time when international public opinion is now waiting with bated breath for Israel’s attack on Iran.

Reacting to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the West decided at the G-7 Summit held in Cornwall, England, on June 11-13, 2021, to adopt the US initiative Build Back Better World (B3W), which aimed to limit China’s economic influence on the international stage.

Then, in a joint statement on 1 December 2021, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell announced the EU’s response to the BRI.

It was about the “Global Gateway” initiative, which aims to mobilise up to 300 billion euros in investments in the period 2021-2027 in the fields of “digital, energy and transport sectors and to strengthen health, education and research systems across the world.”

In fact, the EU’s “Global Gateway” has fully joined the US initiative Build Back Better World (B3W), as can be seen from the European Commission’s document “Questions and Answers for the Global Gateway”, which is marked verbatim with meaning: “Initiatives such as the Build Back Better World and Global Gateway will mutually reinforce each other.”

Then, at the G-7 Summit in Schloss Elmau, Bavaria, on June 26-28, 2022, it was decided that the Build Back Better World initiative would be renamed the “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII).”

In addition, the G-7 decided to finance PGII with an economic package of 600 billion dollars in order to stop the global Chinese economic “advancement”, which is mainly expressed through the famous BRI.

In this context, Brussels assumed an important role through the EU’s “Global Gateway”.

In fact, as the President of the Commission stated at the G-7 meeting in question, the “Global Gateway” is Europe’s answer to the global investment gap.

So, to the 200 billion dollars announced by Joe Biden at Schloss Elmau, the EU is mobilising an additional 300 billion euros by 2027.

Washington-Brussels cooperation within the framework of the PGII, of which the EU’s “Global Gateway” is a part according to the above, continued to be particularly close, and this was also confirmed at the G-20 Summit in New Delhi on September 9-10 2023 as on the sidelines of the meeting an event was organised on the theme of “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investments (PGII)” where the US and the EU played a central role targeting China once again.

In this context, a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed on September 9, 2023, in New Delhi between the US, India, the EU, Germany, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates with the aim of creating the IMEC to connect the huge market of India with Europe.

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It is a system of combined sea transport by ships and land by rail that will start from Mumbai and end at Piraeus, becoming a gateway for Chinese and Indian goods.

According to the plan, IMEC will consist of two separate Corridors: the Eastern Corridor, which will connect India to the Arabian Peninsula via the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and the Northern Corridor, which will connect Saudi Arabia by rail via Jordan and Israel to the port of Haifa and then by sea to Piraeus from where the goods will also be channelled to the rest of Europe by rail.

In relation to the role planned to be played by Piraeus in the context of IMEC, it should be pointed out that it was preceded by the visit of the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, to Athens on August 25, 2023, who meaningfully stated: “Given its location and our historically close ties, I see Greece as an important economic, logistic and strategic gateway for India into the European Union and the Eastern European region in general. There are great opportunities for Indian and Greek businesses to come together. There is a commitment at the political level to see that this happens.”

France, Italy and Greece then began to compete over which country would eventually become India’s gateway to Europe through IMEC.

Thus, following his visit to India on January 25-26, 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Gerard Mestrallet, a well-known executive in the French energy industry, “as a special Envoy” of France for IMEC.

This was followed by the visit of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to India on February 21, 2024, and the “Italian wedge” in relation to IMEC that occurred on the sidelines of the Biden-Melloni meeting at the White House on March 1, 2024, as it became clear that Rome wished to turn Italy into India’s gateway to Europe via IMEC, thus bypassing Piraeus.

Greece India Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis

And all this despite the fact that the Middle East had already gone up in flames with the war in Gaza.

By Notis Marias, President of the GREECE- THE OTHER WAY Party, Professor of European Union Institutions at the University of Crete, and former MEP. Translated by Paul Antonopoulos.

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