It is comforting to see that in Davos, the world’s largest business forum, it was that of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. His message did not focus on economics or geopolitics. He emphasized values (eight times), principles, human rights, sustainability, solidarity and rules.
Carney, a liberal conservative politician who has been governor of the central bank in his country and in the United Kingdom, is not naive. His speech is not part of the usual rhetoric. He knows very well how the world works, “we knew that the history of the rules-based international order was partially false. That the strongest exempted themselves when it suited them.” Faced with this, he proposes “building coalitions that work, based on values and interests, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together.” He promotes multilateralism of middle powers and gives as an example his country’s “comprehensive strategic alliance” with the EU.
The Canadian leader has credentials. In 2018 he denounced “the lies of finance” by pointing out that “the costs of bank misconduct have exceeded $320 billion (€266 billion), capital that could have financed five trillion dollars (€4.1 trillion) in loans to households and businesses.”
The ideas of “value-based realism” or “being pragmatic and principled” are a great opportunity to make Europe react. We know well the disasters of the Union in the management of the financial, energy, and commercial crises and the serious silences in the face of the . But this same Europe, which was born in the fifties of the last century to promote the common market, has undergone a great transformation due to the crisis until it built the most advanced area of law in the world. The achievements affect living conditions, especially labor rights, consumer rights and, very significantly, health and the environment.
As a result of the crisis and increase in unemployment in the 1970s, numerous directives were approved to protect workers, which have led to a substantial improvement in working conditions. European standards and rulings have been decisive in reducing discrimination between male and female workers, prohibiting child labor, setting minimum wages and permits for reconciling family life.
In the 80s, consumer protection regulations began, which were substantial for the right to housing. In Spain it has enabled more than one million legal claims for evictions and .
EU financing was decisive for vaccination against Covid and environmental regulations have been key to building wastewater treatment plants, reducing air pollution and stopping the destruction of biodiversity.
Europe must defend these advances. Carney’s teaching of realism is that the EU needs the alliance of those who share its values in order to defend them effectively.
