Just a few days ago, President Biden raised the option of setting up a strategic infrastructure initiative between a coalition of democratic countries, aiming at providing an alternative to China´s Belt and Road Initiative. Among possible partners for such an endeavour, the European Union could certainly be an interesting and interested candidate. Building on its 2018 strategy “Connecting Europe and Asia” the EU has developed relevant ideas that could well fit with the Biden administration’s approach. The EU has concluded or prepared a number of “connectivity” partnerships, most notably with Japan, and is exploring more ways to cooperate internationally.
This week I had the pleasure to welcome four distiguished experts in a high-level webinar on “Transatlantic Cooperation on Connectivity Strategy”:
• Mr. Andy N. Kim, Member of the United States House of Representatives, House Foreign Affairs Committee, Washington, D.C.
• Mr. Koen Doens, Director-General of the DG International Partnerships, European Commission, Brussels
• Ms. Petra Sigmund, Director-General for Asia and the Pacific, German Federal Foreign Office, Berlin
• Mr. Jonathan E. Hillman, Senior Fellow, Director of the Reconnecting Asia Project, Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), Washington, D.C.
Watch the video record of our online conference here:
