Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is expected to announce Italy’s withdrawal from the Chinese-led economic Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) later this month, ahead of a G7 meeting in Japan.
Italy’s anticipated departure comes amid a growing rift between China and the EU. Meloni reportedly offered to leave the pact in exchange for preferential treatment in a semiconductor deal with Taiwan.
The Belt and Road initiative is a major pillar of Chinese foreign policy outreach and promises billions in infrastructure funding for projects beneficial to Chinese economic and strategic interests around the world.
A decision to leave the initiative would copper-fasten the Meloni administration’s commitment to the Western alliance, typified by her response to the Ukrainian war and national security issues that have soured Italian-Chinese relations in recent years.
Italy was the sole G7 member to join the Initiative after signing a memorandum of understanding with Beijing in 2019. Since then, China has channelled billions into Italian port infrastructure at Trieste and Genoa, as well as helping finance a high-speed railway between Lyon and Turin.
Italian participation in the initiative angered both the EU and America at the time, with many political figures highlighting the security risk caused by Chinese control of critical infrastructure.
Former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was accused of opportunism for joining the initiative together with the right-wing Lega party, which has sought to promote increased economic ties between Italy and China.
Experts had expressed fears that Italy could be drawn away from the Western orbit and into a Chinese debt trap caused by over reliance on Chinese funding alongside security concerns plaguing joint Chinese-Italian initiatives since 2019.
The Financial Times reports that Italian officials are currently holding bilateral talks with the Chinese government to secure a friendly termination of the deal, so that Italy can leave the BRI amicably before it is renewed in March 2024.
Stefano Stefanini, the former Italian ambassador to NATO, said it was impossible for Rome to maintain its relationship with the United States while being part of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Meloni and her Fratelli party have been consistently opposed to Italy’s role in the initiative, demanding in a 2021 speech that Rome’s foreign policy remains “Europeanist and Atlanticist.”
An Italian exit from the BRI would leave Hungary, Greece, and Portugal as the only remaining EU members. In any future schism with China, it is presumed that the initiative would be a major bone of contention.
Proponents of Italy’s membership in the BRI say that the Meloni government is displaying a lapdog attitude to America, underlining the potential risk to the Italian economy that a break with China could create.
The EU is currently weighing up its relationship with China after the EU Parliament passed protectionist legislation to shield the European green economy from overreliance on Chinese imports.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined a cautious approach to decoupling from China in a landmark policy speech in March, while President Macron objected to the inevitability of a potential EU-Chinese conflict.
Italy’s new hawkish approach to China undermines any potential European attempts to repair relations with Beijing and underlines the Meloni government’s new role as the bloc’s leading pro-American advocate.
