Alberto Rizzi
The complex birth of IMEC
At the September 2023 G20 summit in New Delhi, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s no-show was upstaged by plans for a rival to his Belt and Road (BRI) infrastructure initiative: the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) – a grand US-led connectivity project that would link India to Europe via the Gulf.
The initial memorandum of understanding for IMEC – signed by the United States, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, India, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia – envisioned two sections: an eastern maritime link between India and the Gulf, and a northern section that would connect the Arabian Peninsula to Europe. These would be connected by a new railway network to link the Gulf with the Mediterranean via Jordan and Israel. Beyond the transport infrastructure, undersea cables would facilitate the exchange of data, while long-distance hydrogen pipelines would boost the participants’ climate and decarbonisation goals.
The memorandum was light on detail, but the corridor seemed to have the remarkable ability to fit well in each participant’s strategic agenda. It would serve the US in its rivalry with China and its goal to normalise relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
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