García-Margallo: "If the Sahel is destabilized, the same thing can happen in the Maghreb, and that's Europe's front window"

The Member of the European Parliament José Manuel García Margallo was interviewed on the fifth programme of Atalayar on Capital Radio, broadcasted on Monday from 22:05 to 23:00. The former Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation from 2011 to 2016, addressed the decision to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq and Afghanistan to deploy them in the Sahel, the economic response to the coronavirus pandemic launched by the European Union and the protests in the United States over the death of George Floyd, three issues that mark the international agenda at this time. 

It is known that Spanish troops are leaving Iraq and Afghanistan to deploy in the Sahel, which is "our backyard". Spain and Europe should pay much more attention to prevent terrorist groups and mafias from destabilising that area, which would affect all of us enormously. 

I would like to share some data in this regard: the average age in the European Union is 50, while in Africa it is 18; the birth rate in Spain is 2.1 children per woman, while in Nigeria it is 6-7. In other words, we must take development on the African continent seriously. If the Sahel is destabilised, the Maghreb can be destabilised, as was the case in Algeria. And that's not that it's our backyard, but that it's our front window. We're only 13 kilometres away.  

It is very important, and Europe must be aware that we have to be the ones to pull out all the stops. The United States is really withdrawing. 
Let's look at Libya as well. How long has it been since we've fixed the issue? And that has affected economic interests, because we had companies of our own there. And it affects all levels, like terrorism, because let's remember Daesh controlled part of northern Libya, and that is not a small thing.

The main information issue at the moment is the very violent riots that are taking place in the United States, which is a fellow country, where Spain has important commercial interests. Citizens living there cannot go out into the streets: on the one hand because of the pandemic, on the other hand because of the violence. How do you see the spiral of tension that has developed in recent days following the murder of George Floyd? 

I am following it with great attention. The United States remains the indispensable country for the whole world. I believe that this outbreak of violence is not something that just happens. I believe that previously there was an atmosphere of social unrest, and what happened to George Floyd was the spark that caused a fire of this magnitude. I have always had, honestly, many reservations about President Trump's policies. 

But this has been a long time coming, I insist. At the Munich Security Conference in 2018, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier began by saying that "the world is dislocated" and explained that the most serious thing happening was that the liberal international order - in force since the Second World War - based on rights and freedoms, separation of powers, multilateralism and open borders, was being dynamited from the White House itself. In 2020, at that same conference, it was found that illiberal democracy, which is the opposite of what I mentioned earlier, was advancing. There has been a malaise there; some say that this favours Trump himself, despite the polls that actually give Joe Biden the lead now, but I don't know if Republicans will be able to take advantage of this in the end. They are the law and the order, the "macho" party.  

In any case, a few months ago this was unthinkable: the stock market was sky-high, an economy that had been growing for a long time, an unemployment rate of only 3%... Trump had all the possible credentials: an $800 billion military program reserved for American companies, a plan for the reconstruction of infrastructure with America First and the agreement with China in the first phase. In other words, I would not have bet a penny on the Democrats a few months ago, and now I think there is a party.

Regarding the reconstruction fund announced by the European Commission, will it be sufficient, above all, in the face of such a powerful increase in expenditure that Spain is announcing? 

This measure is very important and is not isolated. The European Central Bank has announced 750 billion, which is buying up debt and is allowing the risk premium to be at a low level. There is also the safety net, with the European Investment Bank, the SURE (employment programme) and the stability mechanism. This plan has very good things: firstly, that it is financed with a European bond; that the guarantee is not the guarantee of the states as in the mutualised debt; and that there is a very important proportion in transfers. 

The battle now that the austere countries will provide is going to be one of conditionality, whether in transfers or in loans. This is not going to come without strings attached. The other day I read a reflection I would like to share: "The important thing about the Marshall Plan was not the money they gave, but the rules they established", that is to say, an interventionist economy, cooperation between Europeans and the opening up of borders. I believe that the rules are going to be very serious: you spend the money for what it was given to you and not for anything else, on the one hand; on the other hand, you must guarantee that your finances are going to be sustainable. It makes perfect sense, because the money is not coming from outside, but it is being provided by other European countries that also have needs. 

We must bear in mind that in Spain, according to government data, the deficit will be 10% this year and around 7% next year. That is not sustainable, so there is a very important plan of adjustment and reform coming up.  

What do you think about the fact that in the case of Spain there is an incentive - or at least the feeling - that there is more of an incentive to subsidise than to create jobs? Is this the case, or is it a misreading? 

I believe that the temporary minimum income should be approved. What a civilised society cannot allow is for people to die of hunger, and we had people here who were having a really bad time. A friend of mine recently asked me: "Why do you think there have been so many more fines and arrests in Puente de Vallecas than in other neighbourhoods in Madrid?" because they were people living in the black economy and they had to go out to work because otherwise they wouldn't eat.  

Now, setting up a permanent subsidy, completely discouraging work, that's something else. Today they told me from Extremadura that if you bring together a wife, a son or two children, they earn more with the minimum income than what they were earning before, in jobs that are not very well paid, but jobs, after all. We have to break this dynamic, 21 million Spaniards cannot live off the state budget. 

The European Union is risking its future and the confidence of citizens, both in the countries of the north and the countries of the south. 

That is right. I have serious concerns about the European project. It is that this could have been the third poorly resolved crisis in ten years, after the financial one - which took a long time to resolve and we are still paying for some of the broken pieces from back then, with a political upheaval throughout Europe and Spain - and the migratory one. The surveys in Italy were terrifying about the detachment from the European project. 

Is neoliberalism dead? 

I think it died in the financial crisis. Neoliberalism, which in the economic sphere was Milton Friedman, and in the political sphere was the conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, dies in the financial crisis. After that, in the European Union, financial institutions began to be much more regulated. This marks the end of an era, just as the Yom Kippur War of 1973 ended Keynesianism and the glorious 1930s. 

How do you imagine the new social contract that will be born after the coronavirus? 

I think it's very defined. We're going to a new, digital, green, inclusive economy. I do not imagine Europe with social exclusion like the United States, but rather rethinking its entire model. For example, analysing what has happened to the automobile sector, which accounts for 10% of Spanish GDP: we will have to invest in the cars of the future, not of the past. We are going to have to move towards a more ordered world. 

Everyone knew that a crisis was coming, no one expected the coronavirus, but there were signs again: loans to people without sufficient guarantees or the long period of growth that we were experiencing. From the Gospel we know about the "fat cows and the lean cows". Moreover, the tension between the United States and China, the Brexit, and an explosion in the Middle East are geopolitical factors that were going to have an enormous impact, as the economist Roubini warned. And it is true. So is the reversal of the curves: the fact that short money was cheaper than long money meant that investors were anticipating that something was going to happen. 

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was, then, the perfect storm... 

Of course, but the other thing goes on, and no one's talking about it.