[Source: BBC]

The EU is to reveal details of a global investment plan that’s widely seen as a rival to China’s Belt and Road initiative.

Insiders say it’ll set out “concrete” ideas on digital, transport, climate and energy schemes.

It’s regarded as part of the West’s efforts to counter Chinese influence in Africa and elsewhere.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will present the “Global Gateway” initiative on Wednesday.

The EU is looking at how it can leverage billions of euros, drawn from member states, financial institutions and the private sector.

Belt and Road has been a centre-piece of Chinese foreign policy; developing trade links by ploughing money into new roads, ports, railways and bridges.

The strategy has reached into Asia, the Indo-Pacific, Africa and even into the EU’s nearer neighbours in the Western Balkans.

It has been criticised as a means of providing “predatory loans” in what is labelled “debt-trap diplomacy”.

But there are also those who argue the picture is more complicated, and that borrowing large sums of money is hardly risk-free. Moreover, China met a need others did not.

Either way, China’s economic and geopolitical footprint has grown as tensions rise with the West.