The EU has laucnhed a new transport mega plan for a ‘New Silk Road’ trading route to India. Viewed as a rival to China’s ambition to build a modern equivalent of the historic trading route between East and West, the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor [IMEC] features a rail link, electricity cable and hydrogen pipeline.
Travelling from the Indian coast to Europe via the United Arab Emirates, the route makes its way across the Middle East through Saudi Arabia and Jordan, before reaching Israel which provides the link to Greece.
A memorandum of understanding to work on the project was signed between the EU, India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and USA at September’s G20 conference.
At the time European Union president Ursula von der Leyen claimed the deal was “nothing less than historic” and India’s leader Narendra Modi suggested the route was “going to become the basis of world trade for hundreds of years to come”.
But barely a few weeks after the announcement relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel were thrown into turmoil with the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas and subsequent war in Gaza.
“The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict has now put a spanner in the works, and it is stalling IMEC’s development.” wrote Anchal Vohra in Politico last week.
“With war raging in the Middle East, the prospect of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel has dimmed, taking hopes for the corridor along with it — at least for now. And as long as Gaza’s fate remains unclear, so will IMEC’s future,”
However, some experts questioned the project’s viability separate from the Middle East conflict.
“Beneath the surface, IMEC largely repackages pre-existing, troubled connectivity projects, and participant countries have not yet described how these projects will be financed,” pointed out British think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
IISS academics Dr Hasan Alhasan and Viraj Solanki highlighted the fact many of the nations the New Silk Road ran through were lagging behind in building their own infrastructure schemes and that important potential link countries like Turkiye had been excluded.
“Given these challenges, IMEC looks like a greater achievement for public diplomacy than for its promise to increase economic and transport connectivity,” they concluded.
