Debunking black legends at the Euro-Latin American Forum
The Association of European Journalists convened us once again this year, for the 29th time in a row, for its traditional Euro-Latin American Forum, which is also on its way to establishing itself at the Casa de América as a meeting place for opinion leaders from both sides of the Atlantic.
Populism, which is spreading like an oil slick across the planet, was the central theme of the debates.
I was personally interested in the sober but forceful speech by José Juan Ruiz, President of the Elcano Royal Institute.
It turns out that the leader of our think tanks had spent six months asking leaders and heads of European institutions of all kinds about Latin America and its relationship with the EU and its citizens.
Conclusions
The result could not have been more discouraging. Four absolutely devastating conclusions summed up such a large survey: "Latin America is a political disaster; Latin America is also an economic disaster; the United States and the European Union have disengaged from the continent and its place has been taken by China; and finally, those who bet on Latin America and invested there have destroyed value for their companies".
The problem with such a brutal narrative is that it is not based on real, verified data. As José Juan Ruiz stresses, "it is simply false", and he refers to the voluminous study carried out by the RIE, Why Latin America Matters, in which the figures that demonstrate the exact opposite of this new black legend are broken down with entomological precision, surely promoted by those who have always been there, but spread and multiplied in the media in an innocent manner by those who no longer take the trouble to verify supposedly categorical and incontrovertible statements.
And, among the facts that must be set against such falsehoods, not the least is the comparison that if Latin America was certainly the cause of 6 out of 10 global crises up to 1986, from that date until now it has become a mere supporting actor on the world stage: it can only be blamed for 2 out of 10 of these crises with global effects.
China as a major investor
It is true that China has become a major investor in the continent, and above all the biggest lender, but it remains to be seen how China's legendary and age-old patience will react when it has to restructure the debt contracted by countries such as Argentina, where President Javier Milei has not found any money, after his opponent and Minister of Economy, Sergio Masa, raided the last millions to finance his own election campaign.
Spain's role
And, with respect to Spain, always a target of populist dictators short of arguments, the data indicate that Spain has not stopped investing in its sister continent since 2001, when the famous Argentinean corralito caused a stampede of many American companies and investors.
Since then, two out of every three dollars invested abroad by Spain have gone to countries with developed economies, mainly the United States and the United Kingdom, but the remaining dollar has gone almost entirely to Latin America, to the tune of a not inconsiderable 250 billion dollars.
Now that this new and no longer incipient black legend has been dismantled, it must be acknowledged, as was done at the Forum, that if the culture of the political pact has not been fostered in Latin America, it is because there, unlike in the European Union, the compensation mechanisms for the losers that any transformation entails have not been implemented.
On the European side, they have been articulated in different ways and under different names: solidarity funds, cohesion funds, etc. And experience seems to show that without them it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for true integration to take shape.
As I noted at the beginning of this article, the focus of this year's debates was on populism, with different panels dissecting its history, its causes and its seemingly unstoppable advance around the world.
"Populism is the failure of democracy," argued writer Martín Caparrós. "It arises and is sustained by people's anguish," says Carlos Malamud, for whom populism cannot be sustained without anguish and frustration.
When people don't believe the promises of the future made by their politicians, that future becomes a threat, and that generates the anguish that paves the way for the "solvers" of simple answers to complex problems to burst in, with the corresponding totalitarian temptation hovering nearby.
We all suffer from populism and pay for it, especially through ever-increasing taxes, which facilitate the bloating of the budget, without which there would be no populism either. Particularly illuminating to me was the discovery of including in this payment the mechanism of lost profits, i.e. how private initiatives are curtailed in favour of a progressively elephantine state, but capable of providing handouts and subsidies to the sectors and strata that most interest it, depriving private initiative, and therefore power, of resources that would probably be more productive for society as a whole and the country's progress.
And, finally, it is also worth noting the statement by the Mexican Jorge Volpi that "the greatest change that has taken place in the continent is that the intellectual, who always enjoyed unquestionable moral authority, has become irrelevant".
The so-called Latin American Boom contributed to extolling the prestige of those intellectuals who set themselves up as a guide and reference for society. Now, their voice has been diluted among many others, whose gibberish makes it increasingly difficult to distinguish the true sages from the creepy-crawly peddlers.
Both Volpi and the Venezuelan Karina Sainz Borgo agreed in considering the self-styled Subcomandante Marcos as the last transnational myth. Volpi credits him with having elaborated "a refreshing discourse for the left from which all subsequent anti-globalisation movements have drawn".
From such an intense day there was general consensus that in the region it has ceased to be worthwhile to approximate to European canons, hitherto considered ideal for acclimatisation on the other side of the Atlantic. The visible discrepancies in the positions adopted by the powers involved in major international conflicts, if they widen, could prove decisive in the coming decades for relations and the contribution of mutual influences between the two sides of the Atlantic.