Sergio Rodríguez López-Ros
Vice-Rector of the Universitat Abat Oliba CEU of Barcelona
Among the realities that European Union countries have had to face is the realization of their technological weakness. From the purchase of masks to the production of vaccines, practically everything has had to be imported, paying a surcharge and being exposed to waiting times. With the exception of Finland, which had maintained its strategic stockpiles since 1945, and Germany, which had a National Emergency Plan, few countries have been prepared for a global crisis.
This reality is all the more saddening, if that is possible, because it is to be expected. From the standardization of production models in 1840 to the formulation of chaos theory in 1963, which we all know as the butterfly effect, or the coining of the term globalization by the IMF in 2000, practically everything is predictable. And therefore the statement “nobody expected it” with respect to the current multi-sector crisis is false: everything is a matter of probability.
In the geopolitical map emerging after the pandemic, but which had been in the making for some time, there are three constants that will mark the geoeconomic future in the medium and long term. The primary sector is based on the control of strategic resources, i.e. the 20 materials used to build the most important objects that make up our daily lives, from coltan to tungsten. This is where China is best positioned. In the secondary sector, on the other hand, the key will be to provide services to those who provide services, paradoxically enough, especially essential services: communications, electricity and water. Hence the investment portfolios of banks, insurance companies and funds, always international. And the tertiary sector will be defined by on-demand content, where digital platforms are just the beginning. Today, India, for example, produces more content than the United States, followed by Nigeria.
Nothing new under the sun. The Roman Empire, beyond language and law, based its hegemony on military tactics and the communications network. The Chinese Empire and the Holy Roman Empire did the same on gunpowder and posts. The Spanish Empire built its hegemony on the Tercios, the Manila Galleon and the Spanish Road. The British Empire did the same thanks to naval superiority, both military and commercial. And the American Empire has been based on technological initiative in military and consumer terms, which China is now disputing with the 5G.
Sovereignty has gone through various conceptions throughout history. None of them has a future without the ability of any state to guarantee its independence, its freedoms, its sovereignty, through technology.
In a world where borders are increasingly blurred by the existence of satellites, towers, the Internet and multilateral organizations, the future of international leadership will increasingly lie in technological sovereignty. Cellnex, Amadeus, Telefónica, Grífols, Solaria, PharmaMar, Almirall and Indra are the cornerstones with which Spain can play a geotechnological role, especially in Europe, America and, through the Philippines, in Asia. Another important element in our sovereignty are the systemic companies, such as CaixaBank, Banco Santander, Mapfre, Endesa, Naturgy, Repsol, Inditex, El Corte Inglés Mercadona or Planeta.
More public money should be devoted to research, development and innovation, or tax incentives should be provided. Spain devotes only 1.24% of its GDP to it, compared to 1.5% in Italy, 1.97% in the Netherlands, 2.22% in France and 2.87% in Germany. Our non-EU European neighbor, the United Kingdom, devotes 1.7%. The European Union average is just over 2% of its GDP, far from the 2.7% of the United States but close to China’s 2.1%. Hence, with a greater consensus on foreign policy, it could play a less irrelevant global role. The fact that the European Union has not been able to develop a vaccine, having a higher GDP than China and Russia, demonstrates its geotechnical weakness.
We have the example of the geo-technological leaders, whose capacity for geopolitical influence may be greater than their size, population or GDP, which are all above 3%: South Korea (4.3%), Israel (4.11%), Japan (3.6%), Finland (3.8%) or Taiwan (3%). It is regrettable that Russia is going to be the largest supplier of vaccines to Latin America, when its GDP is only 1.8 points (in US billions) above that of Spain, having to supply a territory 35 times larger and three times the population. This is even less understandable when our greatest systemic strength is in the pharmaceutical sector (Grífols, PharmaMar and Almirall) and when the state has an Epidemiology and Health Intelligence Service at the Institute of Preventive Medicine of the Defense. Together with this greater investment in R&D&I, there is an urgent need for synergy between the public and private sectors if we do not want to be left out of the geotechnological chessboard.
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