Three hundred billion euros. This is the amount the European Union has decided to mobilise between 2021 and 2027 to invest in sustainable strategic projects around the world as part of the EU’s Global Gateway strategy. It was the subject of a conference of the same name organised in Bratislava yesterday by EXIMBANKA SR together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the European Commission.
The project should also be one of the priorities for both the new Commission and the European Parliament, which will emerge from the weekend’s EU elections in the 27 EU Member States.
Slovaks are also interested
As recalled by the press department of the foreign ministry, on whose premises the EU Global Gateway conference with the subtitle “An Opportunity for Slovak Entrepreneurs” took place, this strategy serves to promote clean and safe infrastructure in the energy and transport sectors, as well as to strengthen health, education, research and digitalisation systems around the world. “In recent years, we have faced urgent global challenges. And this EU initiative is designed to help increase and strengthen our competitiveness, the security of supply chains in the fight against climate change, energy security, the transition to green technologies or improving healthcare systems,” said Maroš Šefčovič, European Commission Vice-President for the European Green Deal, Inter-institutional Relations and Strategic Perspective, in Bratislava.
The inaugural milestone of the EU’s Global Gateway Strategy was the Africa-Europe Investment Package, aiming to mobilise around €150 billion in investment to strengthen cooperation with African partners. “Based on the preliminary results of the ongoing survey we are conducting, and also on the demand from exporters that we are registering, I can reveal that Slovaks are clearly interested in this region as well. The unsaturated markets of Africa, Asia and Latin America are increasingly in the crosshairs of Slovak exporters. Naturally, Eximbanka is ready to support their viable activities,” explains Rastislav Podhorec, CEO of Eximbanka, in an interview for HN. According to him, the bank is ready to provide Slovak entrepreneurs with financing options to support their involvement in so-called flagship projects through its product portfolio.
In addition to the African region, Podhorc said the EU’s Global Gateway strategy has been launched in Asia-Pacific as well as Latin America and the Caribbean. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the European Union and its member states are investing more than €45 billion there.
The interest in supporting developing countries in the EU’s neighbourhood, as well as in more distant regions, was also confirmed at the conference by the host of the event – the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Juraj Blanár. “We have been members of the European Union for 20 years. Slovakia is a success story and a part of the European family, which means that we have automatically joined the European official development cooperation policies. Through various financial mechanisms, we have contributed almost two billion euros to bilateral and multilateral projects so far.”
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Photo source: Eximbank