The agreement, which some call a great triumph, has its downsides and cannot be implemented as quickly as the situation requires. Hopefully it will serve because we all play a lot. But beware of tossing the bells on the fly.
In any case, thanks to the war in Ukraine and the joint work of all European countries, the strategic unity of Europe cannot hide the fragility and flaws of Spanish foreign policy on almost all its fronts. Minister González-Laya was removed from the center after failing to resolve the conflict with Morocco, and her successor “solved” it by giving everything away, hiding Sahrawi human rights in a drawer and creating another problem with Algeria. The calm will not last long, because Morocco does not renounce the permanent blackmail. And in the rest of Africa, apart from some military or marketing operations, we represent little.
The problem is the government’s inability to defend Spain’s values and interests in the strategy that moves this global world. From history to economy, through language. Traveling is not enough. You have to propose, you have to agree, you have to do. In Europe, Spain has not taken the place vacated by Great Britain and plays a minor role. Our influence is minimal. The United States treats us as an ally but an unreliable nation, probably because it distrusts the government and its partners. There is not a single government in Europe that has communists and populists in the Council of Ministers and whose parliamentary partners defend the destruction of the constitutional order. If even the president does not trust his ministers to the extent that he does not discuss essential issues of domestic and foreign policy with them, it does not seem logical to ask Biden to do so.
It’s even worse with Latin America because we squandered all the glory of the transition, we’ve become “predators” thanks to a false narrative that the government hasn’t even tried to fight. A few decades ago, Spain was a project of democratic coexistence, tolerance, security, sustainable prosperity and knowledge. And most sister countries tried to follow in our footsteps and end dictatorships and grow in democracy. Today, not only do we not represent anything there, but this political evolution has given way to sectarian, nationalist or populist governments and situations of instability, as happened in Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and not to mention Venezuela, Nicaragua or Cuba. The damage that many of these rulers inflicted on their lands in a few years is infinitely greater than what Spain was able to inflict in the conquest. And they don’t leave anything positive compared to the culture, language and modernity that Spain left behind.
We could play a key role in Africa, especially in the North, but from balanced positions; no one can and should be a better reference in Latin America through solid collaboration; Europe is our main goal; With the United States and the North Atlantic, we must earn respect through responsible alliance and trust; and in Asia and the Pacific we paint little, although that is where the axis of future growth lies. We are a middle power in a global world. We have global problems and so should the solutions. Either we play with a state strategy and a common long-term project – and that also implies the PP, whose foreign policy project is as unknown as that of the PSOE – or we will pay a lot more than everyone else every time something happens another country around us. In the face of wars, unsupportive populism, brutal terrorism and starving countries, foreign policy is a priority strategy.