The Global Gateway as an EU economic diplomacy strategy for Latin America: geoeconomics or values?

  • Paula Lamoso González Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain
  • Bruno Theodoro Luciano Universidade Estadual Paulista, UNESP, Brasil
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18543/ced.3632
Keywords: Global Gateway, Geoeconomy, European Union, Development Aid, Latin America

Abstract

Despite the EU being the world’s leading development aid donor, its geopolitical impact remains limited compared to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. To provide an alternative based on values and sustainability, the EU launched the Global Gateway (GG) strategy (2021-2027), aiming to mobilize €300 billion for infrastructure, green and digital transitions, and healthcare. The GG reflects a new paradigm confirmed at the 2025 Seville Conference on Financing for Development: replacing the traditional aid model with an investment-led approach aligned with national interests and strategic autonomy. Using a qualitative methodology, this article analyzes the GG as a geoeconomic diplomacy strategy toward Latin America. Its contribution lies in critically examining the compatibility between geopolitical interests and the promotion of values. The study addresses the following questions: Is the GG a viable alternative to the Chinese Belt and Road? To what extent can the initiative defend European geoeconomic needs without sidelining the values the EU promotes globally? Finally, is this truly a partnership of equals, or rather a strategy to secure critical raw materials to bolster the EU’s strategic autonomy?

Received: 4 May 2026 
Accepted: 4 June 2026

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Paula Lamoso González, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain

Lecturer in Public Law at Pablo de Olavide University. She holds a cum laude PhD with International Mention from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, specializing in International Relations and European Integration, with a focus on EU external action and parliamentary diplomacy. Her career includes research stays at prestigious institutions such as Sciences Po, King’s College London, the Institute for European Studies in Brussels, and Victoria University. Additionally, she has consulted for the European Parliament on designing the EU Diplomatic Academy and co-coordinates the «Plural Diplomacy(ies)» group at AECPA. Her work is widely published in high-impact journals, including Contemporary Politics and The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

Bruno Theodoro Luciano, Universidade Estadual Paulista, UNESP, Brasil

Researcher at the Institute of Public Policies and International Relations, São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil. Associate Research Fellow at the United Nations University (UNUCRIS), Belgium. Editor of the Journal Contemporary European Politics (Wiley/UACES). PhD in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. His research focuses on the political developments of the European Union-Latin America and Caribbean relations, examining their intergovernmental and interparliamentary dimensions. Currently the Principal Investigator of the Project «Examining the Design and Implementation of the EU’s Global Gateway Agenda to Latin America», funded by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Brazil.

Published
2026-10-27
How to Cite
Lamoso González, Paula, and Bruno Theodoro Luciano. 2026. “The Global Gateway As an EU Economic Diplomacy Strategy for Latin America: Geoeconomics or Values?”. Deusto Journal of European Studies, no. 75 (October), 41-69. https://doi.org/10.18543/ced.3632.
Issue
No. 75 (2026): European Union investments and the Rule of Law
Section
Articles
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Last update: 26/10/2026

The authors are advised to read their rights carefully. We believe this approach ensures a fair agreement for both parties. These instructions should be read in conjunction with the Ethical Guidelines and the Open Access Policy, Licensing Terms and Copyright of the journal "Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES)".

1. Authorship and Ethics

By submitting their manuscripts to Deusto Journal of European Studies (DJES), the authors accept and undertake to comply with the conditions of publication without the need to sign an additional transfer agreement with the Publisher (University of Deusto). In doing so, they guarantee that their work is unpublished in any form, original, and does not breach DJES’s Ethical Guidelines or the rights of third parties, and that no licences have been or will be granted that are incompatible with the rights granted to the Publisher.

The authors assume full and exclusive responsibility for the content of the study and formally declare that they have no conflicts of interest that affect the integrity of the research.

2. Publisher’s Rights

By submitting the manuscript, the authors agree to its publication under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. Consequently, they grant the Publisher the exclusive, royalty-free and worldwide right of first publication, editing, layout and exploitation of the article. This grant authorises the Publisher to distribute, sub-license and index the work in any format, medium, database or institutional repository, for the purposes of promotion and scientific dissemination.

3. Copyright

The authors retain the intellectual property rights to their article and retain the right to distribute and use their work for teaching purposes, future research or personal archiving, provided that the original publication in the Journal is cited. They are also permitted to republish in other media, provided that a (foot)note is included with the full reference to DJES (including the DOI, where available) and no explicit endorsement of the Journal and/or Publisher is implied.

4. Open access

DJES is an open-access journal; this means that it is freely and fully accessible in its entirety immediately upon publication of its content. However, in accordance with the licence mentioned above, the authors of the articles must always be properly cited; and both commercial use and any modification intended for distribution will require the express prior written permission of the rights holder.

More details are available under the section “Open Access Policy, Licensing Terms and Copyright”.