From Budapest to Budapest – the 16 + 1 Cooperation: A Serbian Point of View

In this paper we try to pursue a general overview of the platform for cooperation between PR China and sixteen European countries that the PRC initiated in 2012 under the name Sixteen Plus One or China and Central and Eastern European Countries. After five years, several prime ministers’ summits and different sorts of established or developed ways of cooperation being introduced, it left most, if not all its European participants with mixed impressions about the very experience and the prospect for the future development of the platform. Regarding the complex environment and intense dynamism and controversies surrounding the platform “16 + 1”, we will try to analyse the achievements, problems and limitations for its future development, including its visibility and overlapping with the Belt and Road Initiative and its position within EU–China relations.
Keywords: PRC, Central and Eastern European Countries, Sixteen Plus, Belt and Road Initiative, EU, connectivity, China rise