After private-sector infrastructure projects are already built, the EU uses this “comprehensive framework” to justify them retroactively. Can often appear so holistic that nobody is sure where it starts, where it ends, or what it actually means in practice. Officially, it combines infrastructure investment with regulatory reforms, capacity-building, skills development, democratic values, gender equality, sustainability, transparency, and pretty much every other positive concept available in EU policy documents. 

Features include: 

• Infrastructure financing bundled with a complimentary package of policy advice  
• A convenient mechanism for attaching EU values to private-sector investment projects 
• Several mentions to “enabling environments”. You’d think it means democratic and civic space, but it refers to “soft” investments to attract the private sector. 

Example:
” First we build the railway, then design the framework to prove it was the right investment all along” 

Translation:
“This project made us money, so we pursued it. Now we need to come up with reasons why it was a good idea”  

The EU’s flagship strategy for turning development cooperation into an investment portfolio. Officially described as a strategy to build “smart, clean and secure connections” around the world; unofficially, a €300 billion matchmaking service between European public money and private-sector profits. 

Features include: 

• Development priorities replaced by “bankable projects”  
• Civil society turned from an actor to a spectator  
• Official Development Assistance (ODA) rules treated as optional reading material 
• EU values secondary to whatever attracts investors 

Example:
“We were expecting support for local public health systems, but Global Gateway arrived with a risk-guarantee package for multinational infrastructure firms.” 

Translation:
“It’s not aid, it’s leverage. It’s not solidarity, it’s an asset class.”