Regional Dimensions of the Belt and Road Initiative

The aim of present paper is to analyse and compare different approaches to the challenges and opportunities that Europe and Asia face in terms of connectivity, especially in the light of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as well as the EU’s Asia-Europe connectivity plan. The paper primarily focuses on the economic, political, and geopolitical dimensions of the topics at hand. Firstly, the authors touch upon different approaches to connectivity and compare the EU’s connectivity plan and BRI. Secondly, the developments of BRI will be presented along with actual cases that show how BRI projects have been realized so far.