Having grown increasingly disenchanted with their disproportionately low influence in established international institutions, China and its BRICS partners (Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa) have joined forces to better reflect their increased economic, political and diplomatic weight in global governance. The newly created US $100 billion Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) and the US $50 billion New Development Bank (NDB) are designed to help address infrastructure underfunding, create new pathways to sustainable development, promote south-south cooperation.

This select roundtable, which will bring together representatives of the academic world, EU and international financial institutions, BRICS nations and other interested stakeholders will be organised around two complementary sessions:

Continuity, innovation and challenges

• What are the global governance innovations represented by the AIIB and the NDB and what are the lessons for established structures?

• How to address key challenges: reticence to ‘conditionality’ v. avoidance of ‘moral hazard’; adherence to de facto global norms (environmental protection, social responsibility etc.) in development finance v. financing infrastructure projects with significant environmental footprint?

What is in it for Europe?

• What should the EU response be to parallel multilateral structures emanating from emerging powers?

• How to ensure a coordinated EU response to these developments?

• Should the EU advocate the overhaul of established multilateral organisations or instead embrace new ones?

(Photo credit: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/21058)

Registration before 4 June is necessary.