The European Union and the Belt and Road Initiative: A Research Towards EU Actorness

In 2013, President Xi Jinping of China launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This initiative of unprecedented scale aims to connect China with its western hinterland, eventually reaching Europe and the African east coast, through massive infrastructural investments. Although, the potential consequences of this initiative can be enormous, the EU has hitherto shown limited (re)action towards the BRI. This led Misiągiewicz & Misiągiewicz (2016, p. 39) to state that “the European Union has to date been slow and reluctant in responding to the ‘One Belt, One Road’ idea”. This reveals what some would call a low degree of EU-‘actorness’, with ‘actorness’ being understood as the extent to which an actor can deliberately operate among and with other actors within the international system (Sjösted, 1977). This leads to the research question of this thesis, namely: “What factors can explain the low degree of actorness of the European Union regarding the Belt and Road Initiative?”....Show moreIn 2013, President Xi Jinping of China launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This initiative of unprecedented scale aims to connect China with its western hinterland, eventually reaching Europe and the African east coast, through massive infrastructural investments. Although, the potential consequences of this initiative can be enormous, the EU has hitherto shown limited (re)action towards the BRI. This led Misiągiewicz & Misiągiewicz (2016, p. 39) to state that “the European Union has to date been slow and reluctant in responding to the ‘One Belt, One Road’ idea”. This reveals what some would call a low degree of EU-‘actorness’, with ‘actorness’ being understood as the extent to which an actor can deliberately operate among and with other actors within the international system (Sjösted, 1977). This leads to the research question of this thesis, namely: “What factors can explain the low degree of actorness of the European Union regarding the Belt and Road Initiative?”. Following on a literature review towards actorness, three factors that influence actorness are identified. These three factors are context, capability and coherence. The first factor, context, is about external elements that influence actorness (Brattberg & Rhinard, 2012; Bretherton & Vogler, 2013; Da Conceição-Heldt & Meunier, 2014; Jupille & Caporaso, 1998). The factor of capability is about the different ‘tools’ an actor has and whether it is able to use those tools (Brattberg & Rhinard, 2012; Bretherton & Vogler, 2006; 2013). The third and last factor this thesis will study is coherence. This factor is about how coherent an actor and its institutions are among themselves (Bretherton & Vogler, 2013; Da Conceição-Heldt & Meunier, 2014; Nilsson et al., 2012). These factors are elaborated upon and analyzed in this thesis to determine whether they can explain the low degree of EU actorness regarding the BRI. To analyze the factors of context and capability, qualitative content analyses are conducted towards primary sources, consisting of EU documents and two EU webpages. To study the factor of coherence, a quantitative content analysis will be conducted towards primary sources, consisting of EU documents that represent the external message of the EU. Following from these analyses, it can be concluded that the factors context and coherence resulted in the low degree of EU actorness regarding the BRI. The factor of context constrains EU actorness regarding the BRI, because the EU is not completely recognized as a relevant party by other international actors with regard to themes that are relevant in the context of the EU and the BRI, for example concerning FDI laws. The factor of coherence constrains EU actorness regarding the BRI, because the external ‘message’ of the EU is not coherent in three ways. First of all, EU documents often contradict themselves. Secondly, EU documents that are published in the same year are not coherent with one another. Last, the EU’s message is also not coherent with itself over time.Show less

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The European Union and the Belt and Road Initiative: A Research Towards EU Actorness