European ECA-DFI enhanced coordination: Strategic impulse for effective implementation

On 13 March 2025, ECDPM, in the framework of the TPSDE Facility, an advisory service of the European Commission, is organising the first of a series of four closed-door workshops aimed at advancing the coordination of external financial tools under the EU’s Global Gateway.  

This workshop is closed-door and by invitation only. 

Background

The first workshop will serve as a platform to discuss the political and technical merits, as well as the feasibility, of four initial recommendations concerning the enhanced coordination between Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) in the context of the Global Gateway.

In its international financial support endeavours, the European Union (EU) seeks to mobilise the private sector to pursue a dual, yet complementary, objective: (1) a development/SDGs/value-driven agenda, and (2) geostrategic, security, trade and competitiveness ambitions. These are embodied in the EU’s Global Gateway and are likely also to be important dimensions for the announced Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships (CTIPs) and, more broadly the new EU foreign economic policy and statecraft for mutually beneficial relations with EU’s partners.

Yet, the Global Gateway mainly relies on development cooperation and development finance, with insufficient attention to trade finance. This puts the EU at a competitive disadvantage in a tense geostrategic climate where emerging economies - and notably China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) but not only - and some OECD countries, such as the US, Japan and Korea, actively promote their own private sector in their international development and investment initiatives.

A coordinated European response is needed to ensure fair competition and strengthen European SDGs-aligned trade and investment opportunities towards mutually beneficial relations. This requires the political will to actively pursue enhanced coordination and complementarity at the EU and MS levels between DFIs and ECAs, building on Team Europe and Team National approaches while addressing potential mandate-related, policy and regulatory impediments.