A report from the Elcano Royal Institute analyzes the data by country in relation to international influence in economic, political and social affairs
According to a report by the Elcano Royal Institute, the European Union has managed to maintain its international impact over the past two years despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Specifically, this study analyzes country-by-country data related to economic, political and social affairs.
The EU as a whole has a higher degree of internationalization than the two powers fighting for world hegemony: the US and China. The EU’s global presence in this report by the Spanish Think Tank has been calculated as one country, allowing comparison with the other two world poles, the United States and China. “If it existed as one country, the EU would have a greater global presence than the others,” explains researcher Manuel García Santos.
The EU’s global presence will be 3,377 points in 2021, higher than that of the United States, whose presence is 3,241 points, and much higher than that of China, a country that, despite its current growth, has a global presence of 1,365 points, according to the Elcano Royal Institute.
Despite the fact that the EU retains the largest global presence, the EU is not experiencing exponential growth from China and its valuation has actually fallen by 300 points, while the United States’ foreign projection has fallen by only 6 and China’s has risen to 62. This decrease is due to the fact that 2020 and 2021 were marked by the Covid-19 pandemic (which hit Europe to a greater extent) and by the materialization of Brexit.
The ranking of the first 20 countries remains stable, with a novelty. The global presence is shifting from the US to Asia, a trend that we have been seeing for some time. In recent years, with a very remarkable increase in the latter, China has gained a huge volume of foreign projections. It manages to rise eight places and reach second place, shortening its distance from the US. The increase in the global presence of the US is 40% while that of China is 500%.
In the arms sector, China also experienced a rise that eclipses that of the United States, which does not seem to have grown in this sector in recent years. In fact, the Pentagon’s alarms have gone off before the Asian giant’s purchase of weapons, which is five times larger than that of the United States. The researcher Manuel García Santos confirms: “China has grown not only in the export of industrial products, a sector it leads, but also in the rest of the indicators, with an increasing presence, both soft and military.”
Spain is the country that has lost the largest volume of global presence of the 150 countries analyzed (11% less than last year). The sectors in which this decrease is most noticeable are tourism (-57%) and culture (-17%). As think tank researcher Iliana Olivié points out, “Spanish and Italian economies rely heavily on tourism.” In 2019, the tourism sector represented 12.4% of Spain’s GDP, while in 2021 it fell to 7.4%.
Source: La Verdad
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