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WHY NOW?
India and Italy recently reiterated their commitment to work jointly on the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC or the IMEC). The project was mentioned during talks between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, in New Delhi on Friday (April 11).
The IMEC is a landmark project announced during the G20 Leaders’ event in New Delhi in 2023. It was aimed at stimulating economic development through enhanced connectivity and economic integration between Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
It will have two separate corridors, the east corridor connecting India to the Arabian Gulf and the northern corridor connecting the Arabian Gulf to Europe, along with a railway route for supplementing trade exchanges between India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Europe.
India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, France, Germany, Italy, the European Union and the United States signed an MoU for its development, linked to the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII). First announced in June 2021 during the G7 (or Group of Seven) summit in the UK, the PGII has been billed as an alternative funding source to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) without directly mentioning it.
The BRI has often been criticised as a plan to engage countries in debt traps and eventually hand over their assets to Chinese companies. Western nations are also concerned about China’s increasing influence in Asia, Africa and South America through its mammoth infrastructure investments. In that regard, the G7 described PGII as a transparent project focused on building climate change-resilient infrastructure.
Similar selling points have also been highlighted in the IMEC. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in 2023 that the project would respect the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries” and focus on “promoting financial viability instead of debt burden”. Notably, India has opposed the BRI as it included the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which connected Kashgar in China with the Gwadar port in Pakistan via Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
SO WHAT IS ITS STATUS NOW?
After much initial excitement about the project’s potential, a major global event threatened to derail it barely a month after its announcement. On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel, recentering the Palestinian question in Middle Eastern and global politics. The subsequent devastation in the Gaza Strip, caused by Israeli military action, has drawn near-global condemnation.
A few developments have been reported since then. During PM Modi’s visit to France earlier this year, he and French President Emmanuel Macron visited the port city of Marseilles. Macron said, “Marseille can be clearly the entry point for the whole European market” and termed IMEC as a “fabulous catalyst” for “concrete projects and investment.”
According to a response in the Rajya Sabha from Kirti Vardhan Singh, the Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, “An Intergovernmental Framework Agreement (IGFA) between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) concerning cooperation for operation of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC) was signed on 13 February 2024.” It mentioned the development of a logistics platform.
Beyond fast-evolving geopolitics, issues of funding and maintaining global supply chains have also been flagged as some challenges in IMEC.
