Here’s a three-word phrase you’re likely to hear a lot in the coming year: Export credit agencies. They’re a key part of the European Commission’s plan to “take [the] Global Gateway [strategy] to the next level,” according to its president, Ursula von der Leyen — a way of “aligning” development finance and the private sector to beat China in the global investment race.
However, to critics, the plan is evidence of the European Union’s neocolonial path in its relations with the global south — raising worrying questions about aid money wrongly used to underwrite domestic firms, secret practices, and broken promises to pull out of fossil fuel projects.
This battle over the role of export credit agencies, or ECAs, in the EU’s development work has been potentially given a turbo boost by the fresh “mission” von der Leyen has set for her new commission. So why has a seemingly dull term sparked such controversy?