Opinion | Why the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor is a Geopolitical Gamechanger

The key outcome of the G20 summit earlier this month was the MoU signed to develop the India-Middle East-Europe (IMEC) corridor. The blueprint for the corridor, as per the MoU, will be ready within 60 days. That’s just before the virtual summit of the G20 on November 30, 2023, to formally end India’s year-long presidency.

Significant geopolitical and geo-economic consequences will flow from the IMEC. It will trigger an infrastructure boom in sea terminals, railways, roadways and undersea cables for green energy. India’s western coast will witness both greenfield and brownfield expansion in seaports.

Indian companies such as private sector Larsen & Toubro and public sector giants like IRCON International and RVNL are well equipped to win contracts to build rail and road projects from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan through to Israel’s Mediterranean ports.

Once diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are formalised, a direct route on rail and road through Jordan from Saudi Arabia to Israel’s coast can be established.

Since the United States and the European Union are signatories to the MoU, IMEC has strong financial backers. Germany, France and Italy, Europe’s three largest economies, are also signatories in their sovereign capacities along with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and India.

The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) is usually a sceptic on direct infrastructure linkages between South Asia and Western Europe. But even the council, in a briefing note on September 15, 2023, by its director for the Middle East and North Africa programme Julien Barnes-Dacey and visiting fellow Cinzia Bianco, conceded: “The G20 announcement establishing the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor (IMEC) has been hailed as a historic breakthrough by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. The project aims to build a railway and, later, digital and electric cables, as well as a clean hydrogen pipeline, from India to Europe via Jordan and Israel.

“IMEC will quickly force the West to confront the mismatch between how they and key Gulf actors see the multipolar world. The West believes it can still cement its regional influence at the expense of China, offering an alternative to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But Gulf actors see this agreement within the context of a new global order in which they can balance ties with both China and the West to maximise their own gains.”

Sceptics of IMEC are thicker on the ground in India. Vivian Fernandes writing in BQ Prime pointed out: “Is the transcontinental transport corridor between India, the Middle East and Europe an idea that will acquire shape and substance in the foreseeable future, or will it fizzle out like other such grand announcements?

“Near-seamless goods transport through IMEC is predicated on the normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. They do not have diplomatic ties, though the ice is melting. Saudi Arabia did not join the 2020 Abraham Accords that normalised relations between Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain. It is also not part of I2U2, a group comprising India, Israel, the UAE, and the US formed in 2021 for deeper engagement in six areas, including transportation and energy.

“For India, the corridor is a plug-and-play project. Much of the investment will be made by the West Asian countries. But it could leverage the project for greater integration of South Asian economies.”

The positive impact of the IMEC corridor on the Indian economy is indisputable. Apart from enhancing India’s position as a logistical hub for the Middle East and Western Europe, the spin-off benefits to the Indian economy will come in several other ways.

Exports from India will be streamlined. Once fully developed, the IMEC corridor will cut logistical costs for both Indian exports and imports.

But the real impact of IMEC is geopolitical. With countries involved in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) struggling with debt, IMEC provides an alternative route from east to west.

BRI was to cut across Eurasia, past the Middle East and onwards to Europe. It would pass through sovereign Indian territory in PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan, illegally occupied by Pakistan.

Italy is set to withdraw from the BRI in April 2024 when its five-year agreement with China ends. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang at the G20 summit in New Delhi that the BRI agreement would not be renewed. Since Italy was the first – and only – Western European country to sign on to the BRI in 2019, its withdrawal will be a setback to Beijing’s plans to revive the stalled initiative.

India obviously is not putting all its geo-economic eggs in the east-to-west IMEC basket. It is simultaneously developing a strategic Indo-Pacific military and civil maritime corridor in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Rs. 72,000 crore Great Nicobar project came under criticism from environmentalists and the National Green Tribunal (NGT). All construction work was halted as a result. These concerns were studied, as mandated, by a group of experts who last month gave the Great Nicobar project the green signal.

According to the Journal of Projects, Infrastructure and Energy Law (IJPIEL), “The idea behind this project is to enable India to use its geographical access to major shipping routes between East Asia and South Asia and major trade cities like Colombo, Port Klang and Singapore to leverage a significant share of the regional maritime economy. The geographical vicinity will act as a major economic benefit due to the instance of cost savings for containers’ shipping cost.”

“The proposed Great Nicobar Island International Airport (GNIIA) has been decided to be developed as an International Airport in Great Nicobar. The airstrip should be developed to cater for operations of Airbus A-380 type of aircraft in all weather conditions.”

Military and civilian aircraft will now have access to the South Pacific Sea. The expanded Indian naval base in the Great Nicobar lies just over 100 miles from the tip of Indonesia and overlooks the entrance to the Strait of Malacca through which most of China’s trade passes.

The combined impact of IMEC and the Great Nicobar Project will help India cut a swathe from Western Europe past North Africa and the Middle East to the Indian Ocean, East Asia and the South Pacific Sea.

The benefits of the two projects will make India the trading hub it was for centuries before the advent of European colonialism. The tables have turned.

The writer is an editor, author and publisher. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.