Connecting markets: business power and the EU Global Gateway

Abstract

ABSTRACT The EU’s Global Gateway initiative is framed as a global infrastructure package. Through a comparative analysis of four flagship projects, we argue it depends structurally on autonomous corporate actors. State-centric theories that treat firms as mere instruments of statecraft cannot account for this dependence. We develop a typology of corporate engagement strategies that yields four types: strategic partners, reluctant partners, strategic hedgers, and reluctant hedgers. We trace how corporate power is formalized through the institutional mechanisms of delegation and accretion. Applying this framework to the Lobito Corridor, Dakar Bus Rapid Transit, Lumut Maritime Industrial City, and Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor, we find that, lacking implementation capacity in partner countries, the EU must cede substantial control to the corporations it depends on: a structural necessity whose path-dependent lock-ins may redirect or even undermine its objectives. The absence of reluctant partners outside the single market highlights the jurisdictional limits of EU corporate compulsion.