To ensure regional buy-in going forward, supporters of the Indo-Mediterranean transport corridor should not frame the project as an anti-China one.
After two years of dormancy and shifting priorities, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) project is re-emerging. If effectively managed by its regional signatories, it can move beyond its initial framing as another manifestation of divisive geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalries and become an inclusive transregional network across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
IMEC’s Origins and Ambitions
IMEC was announced at the 2023 G20 Summit as an ambitious sea-and-rail network designed to link India to Europe via the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The initial memorandum of understanding, signed by the United States, the EU, France, Germany, Italy, India, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, outlined two segments: an eastern maritime route between India and the Gulf, and a northern corridor connecting the Arabian Peninsula to Europe. These would be joined by a railway network linking the Gulf with the Mediterranean via Jordan and Israel. Undersea cables would facilitate digital connectivity, while hydrogen pipelines would advance participants’ climate goals, serving as a net-zero-emissions alternative to natural gas pipelines.
Since the memorandum offered few technical details, its geostrategic dimension was more readily apparent. IMEC served US objectives in its rivalry with China by empowering Beijing’s regional competition and its broader goal of normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. It provided India with an opportunity to strengthen its role in global value chains and counter Beijing’s regional encirclement.
For Europe, it promised enhanced economic and energy security amidst the Russia-Ukraine war and Chinese competition, while deepening ties with the Global South. IMEC would also help stabilize Gulf energy markets and support their aspiration to serve as a link between East and West.
From Corridor to Network: IMEC’s Evolution
Given the absence of a detailed implementation plan, observers interpreted the project as an explicitly anti-Chinese geopolitical initiative, serving as a counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and a mechanism to bolster India’s role in undermining Chinese influence in the region.
The escalation of hostilities in Gaza in 2023 halted the project’s momentum. Although Israel is not a formal signatory, the port of Haifa remains a central node within the corridor. During this hiatus, the project continued to evolve through informal coordination. Research, feasibility studies, and public diplomacy quietly advanced, gradually refining and reshaping the IMEC concept.
As planning matured, the initiative’s scope expanded—from a geopolitical instrument born of strategic rivalry to a cooperative connectivity framework, and from a linear corridor to an integrated regional network. With its relaunch this year through meetings in New Delhi in August and in Brussels during the Global Gateway Forum, IMEC has reemerged in a more sophisticated form as a far more ambitious and regionally grounded enterprise.
The two-year setback underscored the need for initiatives that strengthen connectivity and resilience, giving IMEC a new purpose. Middle powers such as India and the Gulf states are increasingly unwilling to take sides in the rivalry between the great powers. Instead, they seek to maintain multiple channels of political and economic cooperation to avoid strategic entrapment and enhance their independence.
The transformation of IMEC in its “second act” is best understood through the visions of India and Italy, the two estuaries of an emerging geoeconomic river linking Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
India: Reviving the Old Spice Route
For India, IMEC represents an opportunity to realize its potential as a global industrial hub. The first step is to replace China in key supply chains. EU-India FTA talks could facilitate this shift and help India take a more prominent regional role. Yet, as discussions progress, it is becoming increasingly clear that IMEC offers opportunities beyond supply chain realignment.
Historically, India’s geography placed it at the crossroads of the “Golden Road,” with its ports and markets linking the Mediterranean, the Gulf, and East Asia through the exchange of goods, ideas, and cultures. That centrality eroded under colonial and postcolonial disruptions, as political fragmentation and regional rivalries fractured the subcontinent’s connectivity. IMEC represents a modern effort to restore India’s historical role as a hub of transregional exchange, this time grounded not in empire or hierarchy but in cooperation and digital integration.
By channeling infrastructure, skills, and reforms into IMEC, India transforms domestic development into outward-facing capacity. Bilateral investment treaties with Israel and the UAE enhance the security of capital flows. At the same time, large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, Delhi–Mumbai Expressway, and NICDC corridors link India’s industrial heartland to West Asian and European markets.
Recent initiatives—including the $135 billion in commitments secured at India Maritime Week 2025, the Vadhavan Port expansion adding 23.2 million TEUs in container capacity, and the Sagarmala Programme’s revitalization of port-led growth—demonstrate how India serves as both an economic and strategic anchor of IMEC. Complementary partnerships to integrate digital infrastructure, like the Italy-India Blue and Raman submarine cables, align domestic investments with the corridor’s broader connectivity goals.
Italy: Restoring Mediterranean Centrality
Like India, Italy views IMEC as a vehicle to restore its long-lost geopolitical and geoeconomic centrality.
Italy’s strategic outlook is shaped by its geography and its historic role in the Mediterranean. Just as India seeks to revive its centrality as a transregional hub, Italy aims to reassert the Mediterranean’s role as the hinge between Europe, Africa, and Asia—creating a transregional and transcontinental network with Italy at its center, as in the ancient past. This vision imagines IMEC as an integrative regional network linking Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans (through Trieste), and Africa (linking IMEC with the Mattei Plan). By promoting standardization and cooperative infrastructure, Italy can foster regional integration and stability while positioning itself to become a central hub in the network.
A key element of Italy’s strategy is linking IMEC to the Mattei Plan, which seeks to enhance its influence in Africa by offering an alternative to traditional European aid models—promoting economic development, energy security, and regional stability, with initial projects in countries such as Algeria, Egypt, and Kenya. Trieste occupies a distinctive position within this network. Unlike Marseille, which primarily serves Northern Europe’s markets, Trieste can act as a gateway to Eastern Europe and the Balkans, strengthening connectivity and integration across non-EU countries in Europe.
Like India, Italy’s commitment is evident in the engagement of its public and private sectors, aligned with IMEC’s development trajectory. Engaging with relevant regional players has taken several forms, including agreements with Saudi Arabia valued at roughly €10 billion. In February, Italy and the UAE signed a $40 billion partnership, positioning Trieste for significant external investment. Italian firms are active not only in Trieste’s port operations but also across underwater manufacturing, telecommunications, digital infrastructure, and submarine cable systems, notably through Italian service provider Sparkle’s entry into the EU ECSTATIC project.
The greatest challenge facing IMEC is the required investment—possibly far greater than planned. Early estimates suggested that developing each of IMEC’s routes could cost from $3 billion to $20 billion. More recent assessments, however, indicate that the full infrastructure buildout could reach €500 billion.
For Italy and the EU, which are undertaking massive investments to expand their defense capabilities, the simultaneous need to mobilize resources for IMEC will impose a significant burden. This means the project cannot afford to fail. Regional instability, therefore, underscores the importance of a networked corridor rather than a single linear route.
The Appeal of IMEC: Balanced Interconnectivity
Politically, the Western-led analytical framing of IMEC as both a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and a vehicle for Arab-Israeli normalization has become difficult to sustain. Partners such as India and the UAE engage closely with Beijing, while normalization with Gulf countries remains tied to progress on Palestinian statehood.
IMEC’s success will depend as much on narrative construction as on high-quality infrastructure. It must be framed not as an exclusive or direct competitor to the BRI, but as a complementary, inclusive network that advances regional integration. IMEC’s success hinges on transforming it from a single line into a diversified, resilient web linking multiple European and regional hubs through both rail and sea. Its strategic logic lies not in confrontation, but in transformative integration and diversification. The aim is to build multiple, interoperable pathways for trade, technology, and energy—reinforcing global stability through redundancy rather than rivalry.
Recent diplomacy has reinforced this shift, with IMEC increasingly framed not as a “corridor” but as a “network” of interconnected hubs. For instance, Egypt is now increasingly involved in plans to route the corridor through its territory, where Italy’s special envoy to IMEC (Francesco Maria Talò) met with the Suez Canal Authority to discuss cooperation, emphasizing “strategic integration.”
IMEC should evolve beyond current geopolitical rivalries, emerging as a prototype of inclusive, transregional integration that prioritizes resilience, shared growth, and long-term stability. The project, however, remains in development. Current efforts focus on priority construction points, but its trajectory will ultimately depend on the private sector’s engagement, market dynamics, political developments, and the vision of its key stakeholders.
About the Authors: Tyler Lissy and Marialaura De Angelis
Tyler Lissy is a Motwani-Jadeja US-India Fellow at the Pacific Forum, researching India’s defense modernization and US-India strategic cooperation. A Dickinson College graduate and 2025 class commencement speaker, he has worked with the US Army War College, Diamond6 Leadership, and Congressman Ryan Mackenzie’s (R-PA) office. He will pursue a Global Policy MA at the University of Maine.
Marialaura De Angelis is a resident fellow at the Pacific Forum under the James A. Kelly Korea Fellowship.
Image: Nick Fox / Shutterstock.com.
