Key indicators — Global Affairs: How do we keep things from falling apart?

As I was going through Twitter, back at the beginning of March, I stumbled upon a video that slightly restored my faith in humanity.

In this video, you could see a Chinese aeroplane landing in Rome, while the local Red Cross officials waited on the ground. A team of Chinese doctors and researchers stepped out of the plane and waved as they came down the stairs. But they didn’t come empty-handed; they brought 30 tonnes of equipment, including masks and respirators, to help deal with the growing coronavirus crisis that had devastated the country.

I was happy to see this kind of solidarity between countries and how the Chinese Red Cross rapidly volunteered to help Italy in a time of need.

However, what I didn’t realise back then was that Italy’s requests for medical supplies had been denied by its most obvious allies, the European Union.

People often say that a person’s true character is revealed in times of crisis. For the past couple of months, we’ve all been under great pressure. I’ve often felt like I’m taking part in a social experiment, utterly unaware of the hundreds of hidden cameras watching my every move.

But, in spite of all that, I’ve been curiously watching how people, companies, and governments are reacting to this global crisis. Will we help each other or will we fight over resources, engaging in endless trade wars? Will governments and international institutions hold on to their cooperative and democratic values? Will we leave no man behind or will it be every man for himself?

And that’s part of the reason why I was so eager to dig into your thoughts on Global Affairs from Transformative Times’ first speculative study (quick note: the study is still open, so if you haven’t had the chance to take part you can do it here).

However, I was surprised to see how divided people felt about this:

• 49.5% imagined a future where countries are sharing information, knowledge, resources, and are working together to progress global development.
• 45.2% said that we are closer to a future where countries are stepping back from the international system and many agreements have been suspended.

Even when we asked people to tell us what they thought 2025 would look like, they often envisioned scenarios dramatically shaped by global affairs:

• “China is dominating the world, the EU is over.”
• “Europe united. US irrelevant.”
• “Another lost opportunity to implement much needed global reforms.”

But now, as events unfold and governments and international institutions make their moves, we have some more clues on what we can expect in the coming months.

So, what out there gives us some clues?

1. Nationalism: a roadblock to cooperation

We live in a strange world. The United States, a historically unrivalled superpower, is being led by a president who is actively pursuing a global trade war while trying to discredit international institutions, pulling the U.S. out of the World Health Organization. China, a leading producer of protective gear and medical supplies, is committed to restoring its former imperial glory and is taking this opportunity to present itself as a responsible world citizen.

India, the third-largest producer of pharmaceuticals in the world, is ruled by a Hindu nationalist who has escalated confrontations with neighbours.

In times like these, when the whole world should come together and collaborate towards a common goal — eliminating the coronavirus — some of the world’s most powerful leaders are just too self-centred to care with anybody else. And this time, unlike many times before, we’re not talking about who gets to produce the next iPhone or who will be the next Google. It’s a battle over resources that may determine who lives and who dies.

And yet, instead of collaborating, most countries are “protecting” themselves without considering the effects these decisions have on the rest of the world and, truth be told, how this whole strategy may backfire. Just to give you an example, according to the Global Trade Alert project at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, 69 countries have banned or restricted the export of protective equipment, medical devices, or medicines. It’s as if we’re playing a game of Jenga where each player takes a block from the pile knowing that the whole structure will eventually collapse.

In the meantime, platforms for international cooperation, such as the United Nations, have been losing ground in recent years. No wonder that it took more than a month for the UN Security Council to meet after the coronavirus crisis began. The Council then took two more months to come up with the first resolution related to COVID-19, largely due to disagreements between the United States and China over the World Health Organization.

And while all this is happening, experts from across the globe keep arguing that global cooperation is crucial to contain the virus, just like we did with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa six years ago. But as we’ve seen in our Key Indicator on Public Behaviour the experts are “tragically ignored”.

2. A vaccine for all or for the privileged few?

Now, this nationalist tendency is not only undermining our ability to control the virus but our capacity to eliminate it entirely through the development of a vaccine.

In an interview for the New York Times, Simon J. Evenett, an expert on international trade who was involved in the Global Trade Alert project, talked about how a possible vaccine may not entirely solve the problem. “The parties with the deepest pockets will secure these vaccines and medicines, and essentially, much of the developing world will be entirely out of the picture”, Evenett said. “We will have rationing by price. It will be brutal.”

President Trump has even tried to get exclusive access to a coronavirus vaccine being developed by a German company called CureVac, back in March.

But this is a global challenge that requires a global response. International collaboration is key in finding and producing a vaccine on a global scale. For instance, according to Dr. Seth Berkley, responsible for the Gavi Alliance — a nonprofit group started by Bill and Melinda Gates that works to get vaccines to the world’s poorest — one of the most successful Ebolavaccines was discovered by a Canadian public health lab, transferred to an American drug maker, and then manufactured in Germany.

3. An existential crisis in Europe

This global crisis is also a challenge to the European Union, as the European Commission forecasts the economy of the eurozone to shrink by 8.7% in 2020, leading up to the biggest regional decline since World War II.

And the problem is that the EU, in spite of having a common currency bloc, lacks most of the tools that other economies may use in times of crisis:

“There’s no common treasury to direct funds where they are needed and, so far, little agreement on proposals to help out poorer nations. Less wealthy southern members are demanding more financial support from their richer peers but without the strings that are typically attached. Wealthier nations, who have long seen themselves as being asked to bankroll profligate southerners, are resisting.” — Nikos Chrysoloras for Bloomberg

We’ve seen how the debate over the so-called Coronabonds has once again created a division. A common debt instrument issued by a European institution is just something that some member states are not willing to have.

Will the EU survive yet another crisis?

I often compare the European Union to a roly-poly toy. You can keep pushing it, and it may even wobble for a few moments, but it’s always going to come back to its initial upright position.

Finding a common European narrative could be a nice start, like Philippe Kern, founder and managing director of KEA European Affairs, suggested when we interviewed him for Transformative Times:

“We need to think of Europe more as a political project, creating a sense that we are European citizens. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be a Portuguese or a Scot or French or whatever. I’m just saying that on top of your identity, your local cultural identity, there is this concept that Europe as a whole represents some values: democracy, the rule of law, freedom of expression. Which makes Europe a unique place, and we have to defend these values. So Europe is also about enabling citizens to realize that they are part of something bigger.”

4. We don’t really have a choice

If this pandemic has made one thing clear is that we’re all on the same boat and we’re going to have to fight this together.

We’re currently facing a global crisis that not only threatens our way of living but our very existence. COVID-19 is presenting itself as a unique opportunity for us to work together on a global scale like we should have done with countless other twenty-first-century challenges such as climate change, migration, or human trafficking.

But all of this will require a new approach to democracy and governance. During the past few years, people have lost their trust in politics and in the ruling class. We need to protect our democratic processes and include those affected by political decisions in the process.

Cooperation is not just a requirement, it’s our only choice.