The Dragon's grip: Chinese presence in ports along the Belt and Road - The case of the port of Trieste

Just after the “16+1” cooperation was initiated and the corresponding Secretariat was established in late 2012, EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, issued a warning statement containing an admonition to China and CEE countries not to form any kind of alliance bypassing the EU. However, concerns within the EU soon turned out to be manifold: prospect of getting too close to China, neglecting Brussels foreign policy; lack of transparency; violation of EU high standards regulations on environmental protection and product quality; inadequate financing model, were all driving factors that led the European Commission to propose and sign a Memorandum on EU-China Connectivity Platform, in order to improve synergies between BRI and EU’s connectivity initiatives and coordinate infrastructure plans implementation.
Another important step in relations between China and the European Union has been the launch in 2014 of several negotiations for a reciprocal investment agreement (the “Eu-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment”, CAI), which would improve Chinese market access for European companies by eliminating quantitative restrictions and creating a “level playing field” for them. After a dialog with President Xi Jinping in September 2020, the President of European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen stressed: “For us, with market access, it is not a question of meeting half-way, but it is a question of rebalancing the asymmetry and a question of openness of our respective markets. […]
So, we need China to move on these two issues and we need it to move if we are to achieve our shared objective of finalising negotiations this year. So in other words, China has to convince us that it is worth having an investment agreement”.
Irrespective of the success of CAI treaty, Germany, France and Italy were among the promoter countries in formulating a proposal for a European regulation establishing a framework for the control of foreign direct investment in the EU, in 2017. The proposed regulation was subsequently approved by measure of March 2019 (2019/452) and entered into force on 11 October 2020, applying to all member states. The new regulation is EU’s first attempt to equip itself with a system for screening investments from third country, especially China. It is not only the member state that assesses the impact of investment in strategic sectors as technology or infrastructure, but also the Commission and other member states can express their views if the investment may affect security or public order.
However, the European institutions have no deliberative power to approve individual investment projects, since the final decision is in any case up to the member state where the investment is proposed. [...]