Bouza: "Biden will resume relations with the EU and NATO to restore US global leadership”
The elections in the United States, the appearance of the Pfizer vaccine and the purchase of 300 million doses by the European Union and transatlantic relations are some of the topics discussed on Capital Radio's Atalayar radio programme with MEP José Ramón Bauza, from Ciudadanos party.
How do you feel about US elections? This is an unusual situation. A president who is reluctant to acknowledge his defeat and who is heading for the exit route, yet he is putting up a battle, a legal battle.
The management of the coronavirus has been a major constraint. There have been some states where this has been very evident, for example in the case of Florida, where it has had two poles of population that have determined many results, especially the first one: those over 65 years of age. The oldest population has assessed the management of the coronavirus in an inappropriate manner with respect to the management carried out by Trump, and has been much more in favour of Biden's proposal. Millions of votes have gone to the Democrats because of Trump's denial of the COVID. The Latino vote has also been very particular in Florida.
The mobilisation of absentee voting was extremely numerous for two reasons: because of the pandemic itself, which led many people to vote earlier, something that is not the case in Spain or in European countries. Also, because there was suspicion in the air that something might happen in the streets, which is why people preferred to anticipate the vote.
What we are experiencing is completely absurd. Even our Republican colleagues have already demanded it and now they have a great opportunity to close ranks and let the families and the whole establishment take up that position again.
The point is that you have to know how to win and how to lose, and now you are questioning the institution itself.
What does the European Union expect from the relationship with Biden? For now a new stage is opening in which everyone thinks that the United States will open to the world.
I think it's a very positive result in that sense, as Biden is committed to multilateralism and the Euro-Atlantic link. A predictable administration is coming back, well aware of the importance of US leadership in terms of what it means for Europe, and in the short term, Biden is going to focus on his own domestic issues. Biden will have to focus on those rust belt states that are most prone to the consequences of globalisation. This is a great opportunity that Biden must seize. And also, obviously, on coronavirus and economy. This ''America First'' is going to continue, albeit in a different form, and Biden will have no choice. But it will be a new opportunity for Europe because the focus is more on the Euro-Atlantic axis.
The EU has announced that it is going to buy 300 million doses of Pfizer vaccine. How do you imagine that this logistical operation will go in order to get such a large number of citizens vaccinated?
I can speak to you from a dual perspective: as a MEP and as a practising pharmacist. There is a difficulty in the logistics of the vaccine, which is the temperature at which it has to be stored and distributed. It is an unusual temperature, which cannot be transported in the refrigerated means we know to date, so the cold chain cannot be broken. Otherwise the effectiveness would be completely lost and a certain amount of prudence and caution is required. Because the effectiveness of a vaccine is not achieved by putting billions of euros on the table, but rather by maintaining the highest possible efficacy/risk ratio and that the tests and phase 3 are consolidated over time, based on the results of the inoculations. We should bear in mind that there are two main strains being worked on, the European strain and the Asian or American strain, and we should be careful that the virus, like others, is mutating, which is a great success in terms of research on the part of Pfizer, but we must be careful. I have been pleasantly surprised by the speed with which it has been set in motion. Two inoculations are required to be effective. This, as an analysis from the point of view of the apothecary and pharmacist.
As a MEP, logistics are essential, and we have already been informed of the special characteristics of storage at these sub-zero levels, and this is the real challenge. The challenge is not only to have the vaccine distributed in the rest of the member countries, but also to ensure that it is preserved and transferred so that the cold chain is not broken at any time.
Trump has been urging NATO members to increase their defence spending to 2%, although other presidents like Obama were already considering this. Does the transatlantic link now have to be strengthened with Biden or does Europe have to take its own responsibility and think about its own defence policy as Macron put on the table?
What Biden has already said is that he is going to resume relations with his allies, especially with the European Union. That is already a matter of great interest and above all not questioning NATO, as Donald Trump did directly. It is precisely this resumption of relations that is important in order to regain the world leadership that the US abandoned with Trump and to stand up to Russia and China. One of the consequences for Europe will be to abandon the concept of sovereignty/strategic autonomy that Macron advocated in this case, which is already dying, owing to many internal discrepancies. From the point of view of Macron's strategy, greater autonomy from the United States would bring us closer to Russia and China, which is the warning that needs to be sounded. It may be that France and Germany can afford to do so, owing to their economic ties, but there are other European countries, such as Poland and the Baltic states, which not only cannot afford to do so, but also have an absolutely logical and sensible fear of what Russia may do. Therefore, without a shared view of who the enemy is, we cannot have a common strategy. And one of the great burdens and losses Europe has suffered, and this cannot be blamed on anyone other than the European institutions themselves, is not having a well-defined strategy for handling our relations with the outside world, for identifying our friends and our "enemies". It is therefore a good opportunity for us to analyse internally what our foreign policy strategies are for the European region. In any event, there are positive proposals for this strategic "autonomy" that I advocate and I have proposed increasing our own capabilities, particularly in defence. It is time for Europe to do its own "housekeeping".
An example is the situation in Libya, where France supports one side and Italy another. Or the current tension in the Mediterranean with Turkey, which wants to exploit this pool of hydrocarbons in the Mediterranean and is facing Greece, Cyprus, Malta and Israel in a situation in which France is at odds with Turkey, and the EU should define this foreign policy.
Libya is undoubtedly a clear example. Mr Sarkozy immediately sent his planes to Libya and this was not a coordinated action agreed upon as part of the internal European strategy.That is a perfect example, and we know what the subsequent consequences of everything that happened with the Arab Spring were. So that's the homework we have to do. We must analyse what is the real strategic policy that the European institutions and Europe as a whole must follow, because if we do not define it, each one will go one way and in the end matters will be neglected.
Trump's isolationism, despite Biden's election, has not gone away, but this, too, is a US political trend that has grown over the years and is very strong. On the left wing of the Democratic Party this isolationism is very strong, and let's not forget the results of Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris are not far from that. In addition, Biden is the oldest Democratic candidate ever to run in an election. President Biden's vital future is conditioned by his age, and the political alternative to him within his own party may not be exactly along the same political lines as he is. At the moment, if Europe is not capable of betting on its own autonomy in defence matters, a risk will arise.
We've had four years with a president (Trump) who first said he wanted to cut back on NATO, and that's held back a little bit, but it's something that's here to stay. And we Europeans must be conscious about assuming our own defence spending.
That's for sure. Spain, like other member states, was a country that was not doing its homework, precisely in the commitment of two percent of its budget.
There has been talk of the creation of the Eurocorps and the European Army and that is very good and we should continue to make progress towards that goal, but first we should agree on our foreign policy strategy, otherwise you can have a magnificent Euro army but the orders of the General Staff would vary depending on whether the head of that state is French, Belgian, Spanish or German. So that is a risk we must take into account.
As for the age of the president, we can continue to go deeper in this direction here. First of all, Biden's victory in the primaries is very important for stability, for in this case what Biden did was to corner the most extremist and powerful side of the entire democratic spectrum, ensuring a more "conservative-democratic" wing within his broad range of possibilities. This guaranteed a more proactive presidency in terms of the interests we might have with Europe. However, it is possible for a president to leave the baton during the legislature to a vice-president, who has three options: to follow a continuum that the president has set out. The vice-president only has institutional and protocolary functions, not executive ones. Furthermore, the Vice-President is President of the Senate and therefore has no possibility of taking executive action. But if it were in the first years of the legislature, Kamala could have her own line.
This new government is going to be the first to have a female vice-president and may leave some uncertainties due to the age of the president.
