Josep Piqué Camps: "It is a mistake to feed the feeling of failure of the European Union"

The President of the Ibero-American Business Foundation, Josep Piqué, reviewed international current affairs on Capital Radio's Atalayar programme. The former Spanish politician and businessman, who was Minister of Industry, Foreign Affairs and Science and Technology in the Spanish Government, discussed the future facing Europe and how countries must join forces in the face of the many enemies facing the European Union. Piqué also stressed that Latin America is currently experiencing a multidimensional crisis, as it is not only being affected by a health crisis, but also by a social crisis. On the other hand, the President of the Ibero-American Business Foundation gave the keys to China and Russia's desire to weaken the West and thus diminish its capacity to influence the rest of the world.

Josep Piqué was born on 21 February 1955 in Villanueva y Geltrú, capital of the Garraf region. He studied economics and business studies, as well as law, at the University of Barcelona, where he taught and lectured in economic theory. He is a former Spanish politician, economist and businessman, minister of different portfolios during the Aznar governments from 1996-2004. From December 2007 to August 2013 he was the chairman of the airline Vueling. On 1 October 2013 he was appointed CEO and second vice-chairman of OHL.

He is very frequent in the press, with numerous articles increasingly focused on foreign policy and geo-strategy.

Well, it is increasingly difficult to discuss the significance of what is happening in the world in our daily lives and trying to abstract ourselves from what is happening in the world is not only a lack of intellectual interest, which can be criticised, but also a profound mistake. Today, for example, the business world, although it works in the internal market, needs to know in what context it is operating, because a great many things depend on it: financial costs and the evolution of interest rates, the evolution of fiscal and tax policy, etc. There are so many things that escape us from the national sphere that we have to look abroad.

We have an Ibero-American Summit that will not be able to be in person, due to the pandemic situation, there will be a number of leaders who will be present, but the vast majority will participate by videoconference, but since you are president of the Ibero-American Business Foundation, could you give us an analysis of the situation in Ibero-America?

Ibero-America is going through a multidimensional crisis; this is not just a health crisis, but a very serious economic crisis. It therefore has dramatic social consequences and also political consequences. In Latin America, we must bear in mind that a very important part of the labour market works informally, which means that being present, going out on the streets every day, is essential if one wants to feed oneself every day. This means that confinement measures or mobility restrictions are very difficult to apply. On the other hand, Ibero-America is obviously a geographical, historical, cultural and linguistic concept, we share Spanish and Portuguese, there is a feeling of community, but from the point of view of their capacity for integration, both political and economic, they are at a very late stage. It is true that the Pacific Alliance has a plan that is attractive and modern, but it is going through a crisis due to the political situation in some of these countries. At the moment I am thinking of Mexico, but I am also thinking of Peru, with what will happen in the second round of the presidential elections. On the other hand, Mercosur has a lot of difficulties, we will see if we are able to conclude and implement the agreement with the European Union, which is not going to be easy. Right now, there is an initiative called the "Central American Integration System", but Ibero-America does not have a sense of community, of a political subject in itself. If we compare it with our country, with Europe or with the American countries, they have had to face the crisis with huge increases in spending and, therefore, with very strong pressure on deficits and debt levels. But if the extraordinary umbrella that we Spaniards have thanks to our membership of the European Union, it is perfectly demonstrable that, if we were not under the umbrella of the European Central Bank, Spain would be very close to bankruptcy today. It would be impossible to go to the international foreign markets to finance the increases in deficit and debt and, therefore, we would be in a much more dramatic situation. This is exactly what is happening to a large number of Latin American countries. Things can be done to increase the role of the Inter-American Development Bank, or the Development Bank of Latin America, or for the International Monetary Fund to issue specialised drawing rights to finance the debt increases of the Ibero-American countries, work is being done in that direction, but they are obviously light years ahead of us and with a smaller margin for manoeuvre.

In Spain we are waiting for a significant package of reconstruction funds, but I am going to focus my question on the headline we read on the front page of one of the main national newspapers, and I would like to know whether you agree or not. The headline said "Europe from being envied to being the laughing stock of the world", which is the key to the failure of the vaccination campaign in Europe, but do you agree with this pessimism about the management of the European Union?

No, I think there is a need for self-criticism regarding problems that have arisen with the vaccination plan. Nevertheless, I still think that having generalised decisions has prevented greater evils. As I suggested at the beginning of the pandemic, each country on its own was trying to solve its own problems in a kind of Persian market, each going its own way, and that would have been lethal for European solidarity. It is also true that the situation is normalising and that we may have arrived a couple of months later than the others. It is a mistake to feed the feeling that the European Union is failing, because they have enough enemies in the European Union. At the moment, there are many powers in the world interested in weakening this project, because it is a fundamental project for what we call the West, for the Atlantic link and the alliance with the United States. My fear, and I wrote this relatively recently, is that we are fuelling a kind of European suicide. The problems throughout the 20th century, in the world wars, have left huge shreds of Europe's capacity to influence the world. It is different now, but we cannot commit suicide as a political project because that would mean that we would cease to be relevant. Each individual country, however important it may be, even if it is Germany, cannot compete with the great powers like the United States, China or Russia itself. Now, we have witnessed an important episode, which has also been criticised, and there is an important part of reason, but I draw precisely the opposite conclusion, I am referring to the Kremlin's episodes with Josep Borrell's visit. Europe has made a fool of itself, we have not been up to the task, but we have not been up to it because we have not yet built a sufficient common foreign policy. The answer is not to withdraw into ourselves, but precisely to insist that what we have to do is to deepen the political project. At the end of the day, Europe cannot limit itself to being a free trade area or a common market, that is what it was at the beginning, Europe only makes sense if we are perceived from outside as a relevant political subject.

You were talking about Europe and on 9 May a conference on the future of Europe will begin and here in Spain the media are involved in other, more domestic issues. It is a conference that aims to achieve some very important reforms which, by the way, if the timetable is met, we could have the Treaty of Madrid by 2023. In Spain, there is no debate in which young people can participate and this conference on the future of Europe is not promoted either in the media or by the government.

I agree that the conference is not part of the public and political debate, not only in Spain, but practically throughout Europe. Probably because we are at a time when the tendency is to become self-absorbed and to concentrate on each person's internal problems, of which there are many, which leads us to pay less attention to something that could be of enormous importance. On the other hand, it is also true that the previous experience, the so-called European Convention, which was in charge of drafting the European Constitution, in a convention chaired by the former French president, in the end we have forgotten that the Constitution was approved by the Spanish in the referendum. In the end, the project died because of the rejection of the referendums in France and the Netherlands. This is a heavy memory, but I believe that we must all make an effort, including the media, but above all the public authorities, to convey to society that what is being debated there is part of our future, and that these are not distant issues that do not concern us. On the contrary, they may be conclusions that will later be applied through a treaty and that will be very decisive with regard to the functioning of the European Union and the ongoing management of sovereignty that the project entails. Spain is also very important, but if we are convinced that our future lies in a more integrated Europe, we must be aware, Spanish society must be aware, that this implies transfers of sovereignty. Furthermore, up to now we have done so, we have transferred sovereignty over monetary policy, which is not exactly a trivial matter. I believe that all these types of considerations must be included in the daily debate, and here the responsibility of the public authorities, and specifically the responsibility of the government, is fundamental. We cannot allow the idea to take root that Europe is there to help us when we have difficulties and to give us money when we need it. We have to be active subjects in shaping the will and decision-making of Europe as a whole. We cannot simply be passive recipients of European solidarity when we need it. It has to be said that solidarity only makes sense if there is an exercise of responsibility. And this applies to everything, to the reforms, to the structural reforms that Europe is asking of us, to being rigorous with the debt, nobody disputes that now we should increase spending, but at some point we will have to return to the path of sustainability. Our old debt requires broad commitments, so I think it is important to make an effort to build and rebuild if we want to. There are many moments in our history when there has been consensus on our foreign policy and, above all, on our role in Europe. Today, unfortunately, this does not exist and the political climate does not help. We are facing a climate of division, confrontation and polarisation, and it is the consensus that is suffering. On these issues, ideas must be built in agreement with everyone, because they go far beyond specific governments and, therefore, far beyond the political alternation inherent in democracy. The more people who are committed to the things we need, the better.

With regard to Díaz-Canel, who is a relatively young man and reminds me of Deng Xiaoping, when in 1978 he took up the discontent of the Chinese population with the policies of Mao Tse-Tung, who was economically disastrous, and Deng Xiaoping made some very important reforms that, from 1978 onwards, changed what was Maoist China. Cuba also tried in the crisis of 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, Fidel Castro tried to make the economy more open because there was a very deep crisis up to 1993. From 1993 until 1997, Fidel Castro opened the economy to the market, to foreign investment, to business initiative. Is Díaz-Canel going to be the Deng Xiaoping who is going to change Cuba?

I find it difficult to think about it, because of course things are not comparable. Politically, but also historically and intellectually. So, nothing to do with Mr Díaz-Canel, who, with all due respect, is unknown outside Cuba. In Cuba, he is called the "handpicked post", Cubans are very given to nicknames, but this one is particularly explicit and also with very little force with respect to who really runs Cuba. Of course, if you take the Armed Forces and institutionalised Castroism through the Communist Party, it is true that he is now going to be the secretary general. Also, people often know each other when they have to take on certain responsibilities, but Mr. Díaz has already been president of Cuba in years when power was in the hands of Raúl Castro, because power really is sitting in the General Secretariat, but we have not seen anything relevant. I believe that the capacity for transformation that China demonstrated through Deng Xiaoping's reforms is very difficult to achieve in the case of Cuba. In the case of China, the reforms obviously had very strong social support after the Maoist catastrophe. In the end, Mao did something very important for China, which was to recover its sovereignty after a cycle of subordination to foreign powers, both European and American, and also to Japan, with its industrial revolution long before China itself, so it had military superiority. Not here, I am not at all sure that given the level of social control that exists on the part of Cuban power, that this can be transformed into real reforms. Hopefully, Cuba will really open up to the market economy and this will lead to a transformation of the political regime and we will move forward on the path of freedoms. Here we have been wrong, the whole West is wrong, because when we have seen the enormous growth of China after Deng's reforms, transforming an economy typical of the Soviet socialist systems into an economy that is not a free market economy but a state capitalist economy. The economy is still very much controlled by the public sector, by the public companies, and in the end the last word is always the party's and it is something that I have always thought that, with economic growth, the generation of middle classes, the departure of these Chinese abroad, with Chinese students going to Western universities, well, the desire for freedom and emulation of the West. And what we are seeing is that the opposite is happening. China is starting to transmit the idea that one system is more efficient at solving big problems that we cannot do, what they call the decadent Western societies. This is not true. But they are focused, moreover, with a control of society like never before, through new technologies, but they are much closer to a totalitarian state from a social point of view than to a democratic state. Therefore, economic reforms in themselves should not necessarily lead to political liberalisation. It is also true that China is where it is, it has the history it has, it has not lived through the Enlightenment, its political philosophy is based on Confucius and gives priority to the collective over the individual, and culturally that has nothing to do with it.

Can the United States do anything?

The United States can't do much about Cuba. What happens is that in the United States they also have this sense of internal balance. Florida is very shocking. Cuban exiles, who are already third generation, have a way of thinking and have always been very influential. But the United States, which has historically tried everything, including a military invasion in the Kennedy era, with the Bay of Pigs episode, which ended fatally, then, during the Obama presidency, trying to contribute to the opening up of the Cuban economy, thinking that this would promote internal dynamics that have led to a change of political regime, has become a miniature with the Trump administration. We will see how Biden reacts, but I believe that Biden is not going to return to Obama's positions on this point and that he will see how events evolve after Raúl Castro's departure from power. We are also talking about the old commanders of the revolution, all of whom are now past their eighties and who, for obvious reasons, are limited, and we will see what happens there. Unfortunately I would like to be optimistic about that, but I don't think so because the essence of the regime is that for its survival it has to remain as it is.

Speaking of China, is it the great enemy that Biden is raising? Are you worried about this bloc politics, this new Cold War that is emerging with sanctions from the US on Russia, alignment between China, Russia and Iran and Europe, which signed a trade agreement with China not long ago, but now has to side with the US. Does this bloc politics worry you? Can there be too much tension at the moment?

There will be tensions including military ones. So here we are seeing it already and it is going to increase. 

We are seeing it also in Ukraine.

Well, we are now talking about China, but if we go to the issue of Russia, then we are also going to talk in the same terms. Both Russia and China, even if they have not been historical antagonists for centuries, because they both have the same ambitions. Influence in Central Asia, borders in the east and on the Pacific coast. It is worth remembering that in Mao's time, with regard to the Authentic Communist Party front, there were very serious armed clashes on the border, which could later be used as a kind of pincer on the Soviet Union. But what this increase in tension reflects is the desire of China and Russia, its main ally at the moment, to weaken the West and diminish its ability to influence the rest of the world. The United States, and now President Biden, has seen this very clearly and is returning to the idea of establishing an alliance between democracies. So, bringing back the Atlantic link and re-strengthening America's alliances with Pacific Rim countries like Japan, Australia and India, which is very important and will have to be taken very, very much into account. I see this as inevitable because we have to respond to it in some way.