?Chronicles of the Peninsular Southwest (II): Brexit, Trump, TTIP – The future of transatlantic and peninsular relations

Until now, the Atlantic was a peaceful ocean. In 2016, however, a kind of perfect storm breaks out. When nothing, or very little, was foreseen, the United Kingdom votes via a referendum for leaving the European Union, the so-called Brexit.

In the US, when nothing was predicting, the Republican candidate, the outsider Donald Trump wins the Democratic candidate, the insider Hillary Clinton.

Now, a wave of trade protectionism is feared with the likely suspension of the final signing of the transatlantic trade and investment treaty (TTIP) between the US and the European Union and even the revision of the transpacific treaty (TTP) signed with 11 countries in the Southeast Asia and fears of a retreat from the duties enshrined in the Paris Agreement on climate change.

In other words, changing waves can be foreseen and approaching in the peaceful Atlantic Ocean, especially if the European populist radicalism also makes good use of the cause.

The state of the art of politics

In December 2016, a constitutional referendum is held in Italy to change the political system. Prime Minister Renzi plays his immediate political future here as both the far-right Northern League party and the 5 Star movement have called on their voters to veto these proposals.

Also in December, Austria repeats the presidential elections with a high probability that the freedom party candidate Norbert Hofer will be elected president. In 2017, in the month of March, legislative elections are held in the Netherlands with a high probability that Geert Wilders' far-right party will influence the final formation of the Dutch executive.

In April, we will have presidential elections in France with the National Front and Marine Le Pen well positioned for the second round of elections. Finally, in August or September, Germany will have legislative elections and Angela Merkel's candidacy for a new term is not yet secure.

Certain is the rise of the far-right Alternative Party for Germany, if the good results of the last regional elections are repeated.

That said, look at the state of the art in European politics for the time being: to the north, Putin and Russia and the attempt to return to policy in the areas of influence, to the east, the Greater Middle East by iron and fire and Erdogan's new authoritarian Turkish policy to the south, the failed states of the Mediterranean and the refugee crisis, and now, to end this “tragedy of the commons” on the western Atlantic façade, we have Brexit, Donald Trump's election and the likely suspension of major free trade agreements, with unpredictable consequences for the international economy.

Having arrived here, the most pertinent question is this: how Brexit, the new American presidency and the possible suspension of the free trade agreements (TTP and TTIP) could affect transatlantic relations and, indirectly, the peninsular relationship between Portugal and Spain ?

The first observation is immediate: the European Union does not have a foreign development, security and defense policy for such an overloaded agenda, and all the more so as the UK and the US opt for a more distant and less committed transatlantic “new containment policy” , if we wish, for a “transatlantic policy low cost, of low geopolitical and geostrategic intensity”.

This low-cost, low-intensity containment has an immediate consequence, namely, the resurgence of some regional animosity or even some regional conflicts between disagreeing partners or neighbors. The triangular relationship between the UK, Spain and Portugal can illustrate this situation.

Outside the European Union, the United Kingdom may cause some fissures in Iberian politics because of separatist regionalism, because of Gibraltar or because of some positive discrimination against Portugal and negative against Spain. This dual attitude can cause discomfort in peninsular relations.

The same is true for the Azores and the future of the Lajes base with regard to our options: if the American containment implies a withdrawal or a long period of waiting in relation to the Azores, any other geostrategic option may involve an untimely reaction by the former partner.

American containment in relation to NATO may have similar effects, not only because it calls for greater financial participation by partners, but also because it implies a logistical reconfiguration of the operational system and the geography of the military bases.

Once again, this geostrategic and military implication has some delicacy with regard to peninsular relations and all the more so as NATO is forced to take to serious conflicts in other latitudes further north and east.

In other words, there is a high risk of a devaluation of the Euro-Atlantic factor and, consequently, of the southwestern peninsular in the face of a threat originating from another more critical point on the European border. This devaluation will not fail to disturb the peninsular relationship.

But it is on the commercial and financial plane that misunderstandings can appear with greater severity and greater impact on peninsular relations. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Treaty (TTIP) is based on a partnership agreement between the European Union and the United States.

The objectives of this trade agreement between the two shores of the Atlantic are well known: free access to the market through the reduction of customs barriers and costs, the harmonization of international standards on the environment, health, safety at work, the convergence of regulatory practices, the extrajudicial resolution of competition conflicts, among others.

In this transcontinental model, the US and its multinational companies would be the center of the world, as the great transpacific (TTP) and transatlantic (TTIP) trade and financial movements would pass through the American continent and, in particular, the Panama Canal .

In this new global political and economic geography, the small Eurasian peninsula of Europe would be a destination and probably a second-order political actor, and the Iberian Peninsula would be a “simple logistical platform” for accessing the European market. A gigantic “TTP and TTIP” of trade, people and investment flows would flow over the European continent, a kind of “second wave of globalization” with unimaginable consequences on the economic and business fabric of European society.

The Iberian macro-region and the new peninsular relations

Given this colossal “TTP +TTIP model” of trade and investment led by powerful multinational companies, what would be our “special territorial circumstance” and what could one expect from our “territorial development model”?

Portugal is, as we know, a highly indebted country, with very high public debt, private debt and external debt. It has an equally high tax burden and a very vulnerable banking system. In other words, the country does not have its own capital to independently invest in modernization and structural reforms that are needed to start a new cycle of sustained economic growth.

In this context, it is very tempting to adopt an exogenous growth model that "promises" capital and investment for the large airport, port and railway infrastructure connecting Europe through the Iberian Peninsula and which can be many other logistical and business platforms for the great transoceanic and transcontinental transshipment.

In this framework of new relationships, everything would lead to believe that we would not only benefit from financing from European authorities, but also from many American and Asian investments, that is, investment, capital and financing would not be lacking.

If this “TTP + TTIP model” comes to fruition, and I am convinced that, at least partially, it will, there is a logical corollary that needs to be addressed. I speak of the geopolitics of the “TTIP model” in the European framework and in the Iberian Peninsula. I have little doubt about the European preference for the formation of European macro-regions and the TTIP would be an excellent pretext for Brussels to relaunch its regional and cohesion policy on this broader territorial base.

Therefore, we would be entrenched, as a country, between multinational, American and Asian investment, on the one hand, and Spanish and European investment, on the other, which would most likely lead to the Spanish leadership of the peninsular macro-region within the framework of a policy of European macro-regions.

Ultimately, it does not cost us to assume that political integration in the Iberian Peninsula could advance, for example, towards some sort of Iberian federalism, accompanying, at the same time, the evolution of the European Union towards a Europe of Regions of a federal nature.

In the context just described, we would most likely have two generations of territorial policies. The first would be related to a package of "network investments" on an Iberian and European scale with voluminous multinational financing for the improvement and construction of large airport, railway and logistical equipment and respective business platforms, in the path of a European mesoeconomy that we could identify with a future “Europe of Regions”.

The second would be related to territorial cohesion itself and would be a kind of “damage mitigation policy” aimed at correcting territorial imbalances caused by the impacts of the first generation. In the Portuguese case, everything leads to believe, the most serious effects on the “Portugal Brand” would fall on three subsystems of articulation of the economic system of the peninsular macro-region: the subsystem “logistics-business platform”, the subsystem “tourist destination” and the subsystem “Portugal-mar or PortuMar”.

Nevertheless, if the country is able to prevent and prevent the most serious cross-effects, perhaps Portugal can benefit from a long period of economic and social prosperity in the coming decades. But this is just a totally open theoretical hypothesis.

British and American reserves and transatlantic relations

The more or less benign scenario we outlined above needs a “pacified Atlantic Ocean”. Now, it is over this pacified ocean that some somber clouds hover: the Brexit reserve, the Trump reserve and the TTIP reserve, not to mention the reservations regarding the Paris treaty on climate change.

Altogether, these reservations show that the two Anglo-Saxon countries wish to recover an important portion of the sovereignty that they had transferred to international institutions and practicing, if possible, an economy of means that will allow them to increase their margin of freedom in other directions. . This saving of means is valid for the UN, NATO and the EU, but also for many regional partnerships and trade and cooperation treaties signed with different regions of the world.

If in relation to Brexit one can, despite everything, speak of moderate risk, in relation to Trump's “containment program”, which we do not know about, anything can happen, especially the exchange of political priorities and a reallocation of resources in the foreign policy to domestic policy. This redeployment and the geostrategic setback that it means can translate into a deep unease with the traditional allies of the US and, therefore, into a dialogue of the deaf within the major international institutions, thus putting the liberal order of the world at risk. Western post-war period.

For all that has been said, it is worth remembering the fundamental importance that transatlantic relations have for Portugal, especially since there is a “hidden country called PortuMar” that has been clamoring for us since time immemorial. This “other country” includes the expansion of our continental shelf, the archipelago and overseas country, the ordering of the wealth of the Portuguese sea, the relaunch of the CPLP and, finally, the torrent of trade and investment that will cross the Pacific and the Atlantic . It is the strong return of geopolitics and geostrategic with a transcendent expression on the peninsular front.

 The "internal problems" on the peninsular front

Having arrived here, with so many reservations, nothing frees us from contingency, but all possibilities remain open, whether the “TTIP platform”, the “CPLP platform”, the “Ibero-Mediterranean platform” or the “Ibero-American platform”. While global player on these large platforms, where Portuguese geogovernance regains its full meaning, the great question is whether Portugal “will be able to free itself” from Spain to carry out this adventure.

And if not, what is the reflux of this partnership on the internal integration of the Iberian economy itself? For this, it is enough to mention the nervousness of some more recent peninsular geopolitics related to the growing instability of government, the separatism of some historical regions and the possible “Spanishization” of some sectors, with greater emphasis on the control of a significant part of the peninsular banking system .

In the geostrategic terrain in which I place myself here, it seems undoubted that the triangle Spain-Portugal-Brazil will constitute, in the medium and long term, a very promising terrain if, however, a new Iberian issue is not triggered, for the worst reasons, translated. , for example, in a glaring imbalance in commercial exchanges and in the correlative organic reflux of the Spanish economy on the Portuguese economy, exacerbating occasional radicalisms and regionalisms.

In any case, Portugal does not have the capacity to be a global player in the transatlantic and Ibero-American space. In addition to this fact, there is the possibility that Spain, itself, loses interest in the Iberian space, given the smallness of our own market, to approach the large countries of the European Union and carry out more prestigious operations in that space, upgrade of its economy, which will bring it added benefits greater than those of the Iberian partnership.

It is worth remembering that Portugal is for Spain, essentially, a commercial extension and, very rarely, a hypothesis of productive location. In this context, the most likely is, therefore, that geostrategic thinking will give way to the world of business, which is not, properly speaking, the world of patriotic decisions, structuring sectors or national decision-making centers.

Final grade

Whatever the scenario, the doctrine on Portuguese geo-governance should privilege all the opportunities and all the investments that re-qualify its territory and, within the framework of the trans-European networks, defend the polycentric model of planning the European territory.

In fact, since this is a territory bordering the European Union, it is not politically acceptable, at the very least, that this border, pointing to the high seas and at the confluence of the transatlantic corridor, is a narrow entry or exit door, served by infrastructure and equipment without logistical and economic depth.

Moreover, it is the entire Iberian peninsula that has seen its interior territory re-qualified and the fluidity of its penetration corridors increased and, therefore, the intensity of the traffic of people and goods. Hence the importance of multi-scalarity and multi-level governance today: everyday governance in the Euro-city and in the Euro-region, geostrategic governance in national states and in the Peninsular Macro-region.

For the rest, who knows if a black swan will make it easier. On the one hand, the British courts want the national parliament to authorize the government to trigger Article 50 of the European treaties to open official negotiations with the European Union. What if the British Parliament does not consent to this authorization or strictly defines the terms and limits of this mandate?

On the other hand, in the American election, despite the electoral result, the investiture by the electoral college is lacking; What if the College of Grand Delegates decided not to appoint Donald Trump as president?