06 May 2020

The crisis challenges the transatlantic relation

Sergiu Medar

The SARS CoV-2 crisis revealed what everyone was thinking of before the outbreak. World’s states are becoming less and less willing to reach collective objectives, as the national interest is the one prevailing. During the crisis, there were also situations when the relations between the European states went from pragmatism to cynicism. It was obvious US’s lack of intervention and coordination in the global crisis from the position of global leader. The power gap was tempting for China and Russia, which tried to fill it with medical aid support, with experts, equipment and medical materials. The attempt did not have results, as Russia became itself strongly affected by the pandemic, meanwhile China’s expansion will in Europe was, until now, blocked by Europe’s powerful states.

Image source: Hepta

Since World War II, when it started to act like a super power to the SARS CoV-2 crisis, the US always had the leader position when solving all major regional or global conflicts. The current pandemic is seen by many analysts as a global war. They are questioning “US’s leader role”. At the same time, some analysts are wondering “where is the European Union, which has super power claims”? The entire burden is on the World Health Organization, which proved to be incapable, once again increasing US’s opinion on the lack of international organizations’ effectiveness.

An analysis of how the transatlantic relation responded to the challenges posed by an omnipresent and malicious enemy is all the more necessary, now, when some states think they are entering a descended trend of infections. Everyone knows the phrase according to which the “only predictable aspect in the global security is unpredictability”. Unfortunately, it turned to be true also regarding this pandemic.

The essence of the transatlantic relation is the North Atlantic Organization. With all its methods, NATO participated consistently and offered the necessary support to the issues generated by the crisis.

Talking about the NATO members’ solidarity, the deputy secretary general of NATO, Mircea Geoana, said that “We are an Alliance based on the culture of solidarity and this is a moment solidarity was proved”. The support NATO gave to countries strongly affected by the pandemic crisis, in different phases of crisis’s development, and NATO’s responsibility level reveals that, generally speaking, the North Atlantic Alliance worked and contributed a lot to easing the pandemic’s shock. Bear in mind that for the accomplishment of its missions, Alliance’s bureaucracy was not something to complicate the decisions anymore, so NATO’s reaction to the crisis was quite quick.

The allied Armed Forces provided the necessary support to the civilian authorities in the fight against the pandemic.

Mission’s joint coordination was done through the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC). This works 24h a day per week and coordinates the entire NATO participation to provide the support and assistance to civil operations, accordingly with the NATO rescues and disasters’ effects constraint missions.

EADRCC coordinated, through the national air control centers, more than 200 military transport aircrafts’ flights, belonging to the allied states, from medical materials providers to users in states strongly affected. These transports helped both the allied states and the partner countries. For example, as response to North Macedonia’s assistance requirement, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, under NATO coordination, on April 8th, executed flights from Turkey, delivering protection equipment, masks and testing kits. On April 9th, as response to Spain’s requirement, Luxemburg donated 1.440 kg of TYVEX for the production of the protective equipment for the medical personnel. Hungary donated for North Macedonia 100.000 masks and Slovenia gave 5000 protection suits. The same Balkan state received from Norway a field hospital, which doubled the Skopje Clinic for Infectious Diseases’ capacity, as well as medical equipment worth of €180k.  Also through EADRCC, the Czech Republic provided Spain and Italy 10 000 protection equipment for the medical personnel. Besides these actions, the NATO intervention for the funding and air control of some commercial transport aircrafts is also important. The US offered support, through flights with the C—17 Globemaster aircraft to some NATO states, among them Romania and Poland.

NATO focused not only on the cooperation with the allied states, but also with the international organizations like the World Health Organization, EUROCONTROL, the European Union and OSCE.

The online meetings of military and civilian experts focusing on the combat measures of the SARS CoV-2 effects were also a permanent concern to NATO.

The NATO-EU cooperation on the matter was also manifested through the coordination of the member states’ response to China and Russia’s demoralization and hysteria through fake news. The main purposes of this disinformation was to demobilize the population of the target state to complain about countries’ leadership, to increase the populist or extremist parties’ influence to reach the final objective: creating instability and chaos in the European states.

Russia and China followed their interest consistently, that is to break the North Atlantic Alliance, taking advantage that in the US-Europe relation, which was the baseline of the alliance, the solidarity is less present. No one can say now that there was no cooperation between the two coasts of the Atlantic, but all world states were expecting were expiring more consistency on US’s policy on the matter.

Lately, the transatlantic relation was affected. Despite all efforts to reveal the cases where the US and the European interests were convergent, it cannot be ignored that there were important situations when the two coasts of the Atlantic were not on the same path. There is no secret that they have different opinions about the defence costs, the introduction of commercial taxes on important goods, be it American or European, the Iran situation and so on.

Generally, at tough times, people help each other, implementing the same attitude in their state policies. As for the SARS CoV-2 crisis, this logic only worked for some cases. States’ solidarity was not present for all cases, hereof it is important, without universalizing, to point out also the bad cases. The biggest shock of this pandemic was not only the lack of cohesion when sending help, as there were states which could not help other because they did not have that specific help, but the lack of coordination of the anti-epidemic actions, which is the lack of leadership. The SUA, following the phrase: “we do not want to be the global gendarme anymore!” used, unfortunately, the same principle for the current crisis, disappointing the entire world. European Union’s attitude is no difference from US’s one. The humanitarian factor of the transatlantic relation was below the expectations, as the states which should have been the engines of this relation rather preoccupied with their own interest, than with the collective ones.

The imposed trade hedges revealed the global tendency, existent since the pre-pandemic period, of prioritizing the national interest in the detriment of the collective one. Relevant to that end are: the White House decision to stop the medical protection equipment exports of the 3M company, France and Germany blocked the medical equipment exports to other EU countries, a negative example followed by other EU countries as well. More than 60 countries in the world introduced restrictions for medical equipment and materials exports. The reaction of the strong European states was a surprise, particularly that the European Union follows the free market principle.

Indeed, the World Health Organization was totally unprepared with crisis’s evolution. Therefore, the US announced that it will refuse to fund this organization. These measures against international organizations, during a crisis, cannot stimulate their good functioning.

Because NATO was the organization to that worked in the quickest and most coherent manner possible to this crisis, its leadership and coordination structures already started to work on future contingency plans for epidemics and pandemics. These were always seen as threats against member states’ security. However, they were previously approached rather theoretically, because no one ever thought of being so close. Exercises’ results were, however, observed in the effective way the organization responded during the crisis intervention.

All of world’s states are currently getting ready for an economic crisis, which will emerge probably also due to the measures imposed to stop the pandemic’s effects. Also, this is a good opportunity for US and the European Union to reduce the image deficit through programs and proposals that could limit the economic crisis’s effects.

Translated by Andreea Soare