The Diplomat
Spain recovered its global presence in 2022, after the sharp decline it experienced during the pandemic and in a context of a generalized fall of Europe’s external projection against Asia and the USA.
This was reflected yesterday by the Elcano Royal Institute on the occasion of the presentation of the new Elcano Global Presence Index website. According to the report, which includes data for 2022 and incorporates a new variable on climate change, Spain recovered its global presence last year “after a strong loss of Spanish external projection the previous year caused, to a large extent, by the interruption of international tourism in response to the pandemic”. The document also shows “Spain’s resilience in the post-pandemic context and within the framework of a European Union that continues its trend of loss of external projection”.
According to the report, Spain maintains the thirteenth position in the ranking of global presence, closing the gap with the twelfth position, occupied by South Korea. Among the main European partners, only Germany and Italy also recorded increases in presence, although all of them of small magnitude, while the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden and the Netherlands lost ground.
The document reveals that globalization has recovered after the COVID-19 pandemic to reach its peak of the 1990-2022 period, “despite global economic tensions and the war in Ukraine”. This “(re)globalization” follows a period, since the mid-2010s, of stagnation in the volume of world economic, military and so-called “soft dimension” exchanges.
The increase in the aggregate external projection of the 150 countries for which the Index is calculated is mainly explained by a significant increase (12%) in the aggregate military presence, partly as a result of the conflict in Ukraine. The growth of the soft projection is also very notable, at 7% over the previous year. Part of this rebound in the soft dimension can be explained by the sharp drop in the previous year, as a result of the pandemic response measures, which interrupted international movements of people via tourism or tertiary education. Finally, there is also a 3% increase in the economic dimension.
The first position in the ranking is still occupied by the United States, followed by China. These two countries are also the ones that have increased their global presence the most compared to the previous year, both in terms of economic presence and in terms of military and soft presence. However, the gap between the two is narrowing. In 2022, the U.S. presence doubles that of China, whereas it tripled it ten years ago and increased it ninefold in the 1990s. Germany remains in third place. It is followed by Japan (fourth position), which overtakes the United Kingdom (fifth). India rises to tenth position, pushing Italy down to eleventh.
The new website
On the other hand, the Elcano Royal Institute presented yesterday the new website of the Elcano Global Presence Index, which aims to improve the users’ experience by facilitating their visualization and understanding of the information, and which has been developed thanks to a strategic collaboration agreement with IBM.
It will provide updated and detailed information on the external projection of countries, regions and other groups of countries (such as the G20 or NATO) “following the best user experience practices to facilitate its navigability”. With this website, a “unique tool in its field to measure the globalization process”, the Elcano Royal Institute “advances in its strategy of digital transformation at the service of an increasingly wider community of users”, the think tank highlighted.
