23 April 2020

Europe after the pandemic

Sergiu Medar

The world after the COVID-19 pandemic will be different than it is today. For a better version of the world, states must act now, must have vision for what’s coming. The pandemic crisis will change the social behaviour and will, most likely, impose a series of protective measures in terms of the people’s free circulation. The further economic crisis will probably bring some global political and economic changes.

Image source: Mediafax

It is a truism to think that after the international crisis provoked by the SARS CoV-2 pandemic the world will change. This change will be quick, as only seen before in the post-world wars period. Trying to speculate now how the post-pandemic crisis world will look like would be useless and hazardous. Any serious analysis cannot but present only a partial possible reality, grouped on fields and geographic areas.

The changes to be made will affect the following fields:

- the political field, by choosing new organization methods of the society. The illiberal democracy will continue, most likely, to gain ground, continuing the last 3-4 years’ tendency. Bear in mind that the non-liberal states crossed, in 2019, for the first time, the 50% level of world’s states. Maybe there will not be many states which will completely give up liberal democracy, but it is almost certain that many principle modifications, accepted during the pandemic, will continue.

During the crisis, it was noticed that people in some countries do not follow the rules imposed by those states’ governments. Refusing to do so led to rules specific only to totalitarian states. Using the force institutions was the most effective method to impose restrictions. It was applied the principle according to which, where there is no education, disciplining the population is the only alternative. This led to the wrong idea that authoritarianism will be the future way of governing. Indeed, states’ governing principles must be politically modified. However, giving up liberal democracy would be the biggest mistake democratic states would do.

-the social field – through the total or partial maintenance of democratic liberties. Europe is, indeed, one of the most affected areas by this pandemic. The big density of the population and the quite small distances between states led to a quick transmission of the SARS CoV-2 virus in all the European states. Globalization allowed the common participation of European states’ population to the establishment of the national product, which resulted in a mixed European population in an area that practically has no borders for population’s circulation. The pandemic crisis provoked the restriction or even prohibition of these dislocations, not only on the European territory, but also towards other destinations. With some of the restrictions being related to the preclusion of possible viruses’ spread (not just SARS CoV-2), these possible future circulation restrictions may go global.

For individuals’ circulation control, who could make the virus spread, there were used also autonomous surveillance systems, utilized before in the fight against terrorism. During the crisis period, these systems were extended and improved for people’s surveillance or for areas where quarantine was imposed. Although the intelligence services tendency would be to extend the use of the surveillance systems and the monitoring of parts of the population in the post-crisis period as well, the special commissions of democratic states’ parliaments will have to monitor their use.

The restrictive measures taken during the COVID-19 crisis did not provoke, so far, social movements.

As the pandemic crisis is close to an end, social movements may also emerge, but not due to already imposed restrictions but mostly because of the further economic crisis, which is already felt within the poor communities. Unemployment and the lack of basic financial methods for the daily living will, most likely, generate some major social movements. These will try to overthrow governments that will be seen as the scapegoat for the lack of resources.

The social complaints will stimulate the populist and nationalist movements, which will embrace the antigovernment attitude, trying to overthrow the states’ leadership. This malign attitude could create chaos, so that the pandemic crisis will lead to an economic crisis and hereof a political one. The chaos to follow will bring disastrous consequences. Both the economic and the political crisis can be contained through the actions of governments that will become aware of the situation, will analyze it and will apply a plan to allow calm, yet strong actions, especially anticipative ones. Given that this internal negation condition is “ideal” for internal or external antinational demonstrations, the National Intelligence Services can offer the policymakers anticipative information that can help them make the correct decisions.

The statistic analysis of the SARS-CoV2 infected people, as well as the reduced number of medical personnel, along with the quick reaction speed provokes some malpractices in terms of data protection, which affects citizen’s safety. They will surely not give up the GDPR system, but they will also find solutions to increase its operativity.

The social behaviour of the entire population may also change. The physical and social distance rule, the lack of handshakes and hugs between friends, the necessity to always wear a protection masks are some of these changes.

-the economic field, through actions aiming to prevent the use of states economic vulnerabilities. The isolation measures, the extension of the remote work regime even where it is not indicated, the closure of some enterprises due to the outlet decrease, the introduction of technical unemployment, the companies’ need to change their profile completely to stay on the market and hereof many dismissals of specialists have reduced the economic parameters for many states. It is obvious that this pandemic crisis will be followed by an economic crisis. There was a tendency to reduce the economic performances of the states even before Covid-19. The pandemic’s effects have only highlighted this process, so that what was previously a tendency or a warning, it now became a certainty, whose consequences cannot be, for now, anticipated. Generally, states will not be able to avoid this crisis, but, having a pro-active attitude, they will be able to find solutions to calm it down. As the entire European Union will be threatened by the economic crisis, the European solidarity is essential to save continent’s states. The European Commission has already announced a consistent financial package to reduce the economic crisis’s consequences. The true European solidarity will, however, be seen in how funds are distributed.

- the European security field, is an essential objective in the post-crisis period.

These are times when the European Union’s states are economically, politically and socially vulnerable. China and Russia will, most likely, try to take advantage of this situation to reach their political purposes.

When the Covid-19 epidemic’s consequences worsened in China, in order to diminish the losses, a series of European companies which were working on China’s territory have reduced the quotations of their shares to cut down the crisis’s losses. These were bought by the Chinese state, indirectly making a nationalization of the European capital invested in China. When the pandemic extended in Europe, some European enterprises which also suffered due to the crisis have started to cut down the market quotations of their shares. The first bidders were the private or state Chinese companies. Aware of the danger of China partially taking the control of the European economy, Mrs. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, recommended the governments to buy the available shares of the European companies. Just like in China, this is also a nationalization action, but this time is favouring the companies and they are, most likely, temporary. In order to reach these objectives and to collect information on the European researches in SARS CoV-2 virus, China intensified its espionage activities in Europe. The preferred a way of action that is targeting the families of policymakers, then blackmailing them and start the informative exploitation or imposing some decisions.

The military security of the European states is affected by the infection of many soldiers and their absence from the activities for 60 days. This is also the reason why the only nuclear propelled aircraft carrier from the European Union states, Charles de Gaulle, became inoperable, decreasing Union’s defence capacity. The security fragility of the European states will also emerge after the possible falling review if the military budgets.

The absence of NATO soldiers at the national and international exercises in the first half of the year has affected armies’ training level, creating new European security vulnerability. Possible falling reviews of the military budgets will endanger the functioning of an already under-funded field.

Disinformation is controlled by the media aggressors. They are using fake news as their main manipulation method of masses and other policymakers. Informational aggression is already applied, on a large scale, now when the entire population is psychically marked by what is on the TV or what they are reading on the internet.

The post-coronavirus world will, most likely, not be the same anymore. It is all on the proactive policy of states’ government to make the world better than it was before.

English version by Andreea Soare