The New Silk Road, part II: implications for Europe

Through the New Silk Road (NSR) initiative, China increasingly invests in building and modernizing overland and maritime infrastructures with a view to enhancing the overall connectivity between China and Europe. The NSR runs through a number of Eurasian emerging markets and extends to Southeastern Europe (SEE), where Chinese investments include the modernization of ports and highspeed rail and road projects to speed up the transport of goods between China and Europe (e.g. port of Piraeus, rail connection to Budapest). Participation in the NSR will probably stimulate SEE’s economic expansion and may even contribute to overcoming its traditional peripheral position in Europe. Ideally, SEE will play a role in catalyzing a deepening of China-EU economic relations, e.g. by facilitating European exports to China and other countries along NSR trajectories, which would boost growth in Europe more widely. In the long run, these developments might also influence the EU’s political and economic positioning on a global scale.