International partnerships commissioner Jozef Sikela has pushed the gathering to the autumn, marking the second time this year that the board has failed to convene effectively. The April session saw a similarly hollow turnout; while chairs from three major European Parliament committees arrived to hold the project to account, only one national minister appeared. A lone EU commissioner reportedly attended that meeting, though he departed after just one hour.
EU Global Gateway stalls as member states shun board meetings
A June board meeting for the EU’s flagship Global Gateway infrastructure program was scrapped after nearly every national minister failed to confirm attendance. This display of apathy comes only weeks after those same member states publicly criticized the initiative’s leadership for a persistent lack of transparency in its decision-making processes.
Launched in 2022 with a massive €300bn mandate to fund infrastructure in developing nations—including a €100bn commitment to Africa—the project remains central to the bloc’s external policy. Despite this strategic weight, the repeated absence of ministerial-level oversight suggests a widening disconnect between the European Commission’s ambitions and the engagement of the EU-27 governments tasked with executing them.
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