Spain, although affected, is not as badly affected as other European partners

The United Kingdom's exit from the European Union finally materialized on the last day of 2020. The compromise on fisheries was the last point of the arduous negotiations and the differences were only overcome a few conference before the unpostponable deadline. The fisheries agreement reached provides that for five and a half years EU vessels will continue to have access to fish in British waters. Although affected, Spain is not as badly affected as other European partners.

Fishing fleet in the Galician town of Ribeira [Luis Miguel Bugallo].

article / Ane Gil

The Withdrawalagreement culminating Brexit ran aground in its final stretch on the fisheries issue, despite the fact that the UK's fishing activity in its waters contributes only 0.12% of British GDP.

That discussion, which nearly derailed the negotiations, centered on the delimitation of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the area beyond territorial waters - at a maximum distance from the coast of 200 nautical miles (about 370 kilometers) - in which a coastal country has sovereign rights to explore and exploit, conserve and manage natural resources, whether living or non-living. In the UK EEZ there are fish-rich fishing grounds, accounting, with an average of 1.285 million tons of fish per year, according to a 2019 study by the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee, for 15% of the total EU catch. Of these catches, only 43% was taken by British fishermen, while the remaining 57% was taken by the other EU countries. The European countries that had access to fishing in British waters were Spain, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden.

Therefore, the entrance into force of Brexit would mark the withdrawal the United Kingdom from the Common Fisheries Policy, which defines the access of European vessels to the Exclusive Economic Zone.

Initial perspectives

During its membership of the EU, the UK was part of the Common Fisheries Policy, whereby all EU member states' fishing fleets have equal access to European waters. In the EU, fishing rights are negotiated annually by the ministers of each member state and national quotas (the amount of fish of each species that each country's fleet can catch) are set using historical data as a reference letter.

The Spanish fishing fleet followed the negotiations closely, as it had a lot to lose with a bad agreement. On the one hand, a agreement Brexit could mean a reduction in income of 27 million euros related to fishing in British waters; it would also lead to a drastic reduction in catches of hake, roosterfish and mackerel for Spanish fishing vessels specialized in these species. On the other hand, employment would also be affected if the agreement established a drastic reduction in catches. Eighty Spanish vessels are licence to fish in British waters, which means almost 10,000 work related to this activity.

Negotiations

Until Brexit, British waters and their exploitation were negotiated jointly with the rest of the maritime areas of the European Union. Brussels tried to maintain this relationship even if the United Kingdom left the EU, so the position of the European negotiators focused on preserving the fishing quota system that had been in force for a period of fifteen years. However, the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, always ruled out any trade agreement that would grant European vessels access to British waters in exchange for better conditions for British financial services in the single market as offered by Brussels. London wanted to implement a regime similar to the Norwegian one, which negotiates year by year the catches of EU fleets in its waters, with the difference that in the Norwegian case the pact refers to average a dozen species, as opposed to almost a hundred in British waters.

We should bear in mind that the service sector represents 80% of the UK's GDP, while fishing activities account for only 0.12%. Therefore, it is quite evident that London's positions in the fisheries section were more political than economic. And the fact is that, although fishing activities have little impact on British Economics , the fishing sector does have political importance for the Eurosceptic cause, since regaining control of the waters was one of the promises in the Brexit referendum. Thus, this issue became a symbol of national sovereignty.

The starting point of the negotiations was the British government's demand to repatriate up to 80% of the catches in its waters of control, while the EU offered to refund the UK between 15% and 18%. Johnson wanted to retain management of the exploitation of its waters and to negotiate with the EU as a preferred partner . He expressed his initial intention to establish, from January 2021, more frequent negotiations on how to fish in his EEZ. This resulted in a finalagreement which means that European vessels will continue to be able to fish in British waters for five and a half years, in exchange for a 25% refund on the quotas EU vessels fish there, an Issue estimated to be worth some 161 million euros. In return, fishery products will continue to enter the European market at zero tariff. After this transitional stage, the EU and the UK will have to renegotiate year after year. If the agreement is violated, there are mechanisms that guarantee compensation, such as the establishment of tariffs.

Consequences for Spain and its European neighbors

The agreement provoked discontent in the UK fishing industry, which accused Johnson of caving in on the agreement. The National Federation of Fishermen's Organizations expressed disappointment that only marginal changes had been made to quotas and that EU fleets would continue to have access to British waters up to the six-mile limit. The prime minister responded that the UK could now catch "prodigious amounts of extra fish".

For the time being, the UK has already encountered some problems. The new customs agreement has been causing delays and trucks have to be checked at the borders. With a sudden overproduction, there will not be enough veterinarians to carry out the necessary export health certificates. Therefore, the new bureaucratic requirements have led to several cases of seafood rotting on the docks before it can be exported to the EU. It is estimated that the fishing industry is losing 1 million pounds per day due to these new requirements, which has caused many fishermen to reduce their daily catch.

But EU fishermen will also be affected, as until now they obtained catches in British waters with a total annual value of 650 million euros, according to the European Parliament, especially position Danish, Dutch and French vessels. In addition, Belgium is one of the countries most affected, as 43% of its catches are taken in British waters; it will now have to reduce its catches by 25% over the next 5 years. In addition, Belgian fishermen used to land their fish in British ports and then truck it to Belgium. However, this will no longer be possible. Along with Belgium, other countries that will suffer the most from the loss of fishing rights due to Brexit are Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands.

As for Spain, the fishing sector has acknowledged its unease about the annual negotiation that will take place after the initial five-year period, as well as the consequences on the future distribution of the remaining fishing quotas, on the Common Fisheries Policy itself, on the exchange of quotas between countries and on the sustainable management of marine stocks. However, in the short term, the Spanish fleet does not seem to be so affected in comparison with other European countries.

In fact, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, valued positively this agreement, considering it a "good agreement, which provides stability and legal certainty". Planas argued that the 25% reduction in the average value of the catches of the eight European countries fishing in British waters has limited effects on Spanish fishing activity and, by way of example, he stated that hake catches will only be reduced by 1%. That is, the current quota of 29.5% would drop to 28.5% in 2026. In addition, other species of greater interest to Spain (such as mackerel, horse mackerel and blue whiting) have not been included in the agreement and there are no reductions in deep-water species in high demand (such as black scabbardfish or grenadiers). In conclusion, Planas affirmed that Spain has only conceded on 17 of the 32 fishing resources allocated to the country. However, it is up to Brussels to go into details and decide on fishing quotas during the transition period opened on January 1, in which the eight countries fishing in British waters will have lower quotas.

In conclusion, Britain now has the ability to dictate its own rules subject fishing. By 2026, the UK can decide to completely withdraw access for EU vessels to British waters. But the EU could then respond by suspending access to its waters or imposing tariffs on UK fish exports.

An update on the Iranian nuclear accord between 2018 and the resumed talks in April 2021

The signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reached in 2015 to limit Iran's nuclear program, met again on April 6 in Vienna to explore the possibility of reviving the accord. The US withdrawal after Donald Trump becoming president put the agreement on hold and lead Tehran to miss its commitments. Here we offer an update on the issue until the international talks resumed.

Trump's announcement of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA on May 8, 2018 [White House].

ARTICLE / Ana Salas Cuevas

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a key player in the stability of its regional environment, which means that it is a central country worth international attention. It is a regional power not only because of its strategic location, but also because of its large hydrocarbon reserves, which make Iran the fourth country in oil reserves and the second one in gas reserves.

In 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) brought to the light and warned the international community about the existence of nuclear facilities, and of a covert program in Iran which could serve a military purpose. This prompted the United Nations and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the P5: France, China, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom) to take measures against Iran in 2006. Multilateral and unilateral economic sanctions (the UN and the US) were implemented, which deteriorated Iran's economy, but which did not stop its nuclear proliferation program. There were also sanctions linked to the development of ballistic missiles and to the support of terrorist groups. These sanctions, added to the ones the United States imposed on Tehran in the wake of the 1979 revolution, and together with the instability that cripples the country, caused a deep deterioration of Iran's economy.

In November 2013, the P5 plus Germany (P5+1) and Iran came to terms with an initial agreement on Iran's nuclear program (a Joint Plan of Action) which, after several negotiations, translated into a final pact, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in 2015. The European Union adhered to the JCPOA.

The focus of Iran's motives for succumbing and accepting restrictions on its nuclear program lies in the Iranian regime's concern that the deteriorating living conditions of the Iranian population due to the economic sanctions could result in growing social unrest.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

The goal of these negotiations was to reach a long-term comprehensive solution agreed by both parties to ensure that Iran's nuclear program would be completely peaceful. Iran reiterated that it would not seek or develop any nuclear weapons under any circumstances. The real aim of the nuclear deal, though, was to extend the time needed for Iran to produce enough fissile material for bombs from three months to one year. To this end, a number of restrictions were reached.

This comprehensive solution involved a mutually defined enrichment plan with practical restrictions and transparent measures to ensure the peaceful nature of the program. In addition, the resolution incorporated a step-by-step process of reciprocity that included the lifting of all UN Security Council, multilateral and national sanctions related to Iran's nuclear program. In total, these obligations were key to freeze Iran's nuclear program and reduced the factors most sensitive to proliferation. In return, Iran received limited sanctions relief.

More specifically, the key points in the JCPOA were the following: Firstly, for 15 years, Iran would limit its uranium enrichment to 3.67%, eliminate 98% of its enriched uranium stocks in order to reduce them to 300 kg, and restrict its uranium enrichment activities to its facilities at Natanz. Secondly, for 10 years, it would not be able to operate more than 5,060 old and inefficient IR-1 centrifuges to enrich uranium. Finally, inspectors from the IAEA would be responsible for the next 15 years for ensuring that Iran complied with the terms of the agreement and did not develop a covert nuclear program.

In exchange, the sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and the United Nations on its nuclear program would be lifted, although this would not apply to other types of sanctions. Thus, as far as the EU is concerned, restrictive measures against individuals and entities responsible for human rights violations, and the embargo on arms and ballistic missiles to Iran would be maintained. In turn, the United States undertook to lift the secondary sanctions, so that the primary sanctions, which have been in place since the Iranian revolution, remained unchanged.

To oversee the implementation of the agreement, a joint committee composed of Iran and the other signatories to the JCPOA would be established to meet every three months in Vienna, Geneva or New York.

United States withdrawal

In 2018, President Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 Iran deal and moved to resume the sanctions lifted after the agreement was signed. The withdrawal was accompanied by measures that could pit the parties against each other in terms of sanctions, encourage further proliferation measures by Iran and undermine regional stability. The US exit from the agreement put the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on hold.

The United States argued that the agreement allowed Iran to approach the nuclear threshold in a short period of time. With the withdrawal, however, the US risked bringing this point closer in time by not waiting to see what could happen after the 10 and 15 years, assuming that the pact would not last after that time. This may make Iran's proliferation a closer possibility.

Shortly after Trump announced the first anniversary of its withdrawal from the nuclear deal and the assassination of powerful military commander Qasem Soleimani by US drones, Iran announced a new nuclear enrichment program as a signal to nationalists, designed to demonstrate the power of the mullah regime. This leaves the entire international community to question whether diplomatic efforts are seen in Tehran as a sign of weakness, which could be met with aggression.

On the one hand, some opinions consider that, by remaining within the JCPOA, renouncing proliferation options and respecting its commitments, Iran gains credibility as an international actor while the US loses it, since the agreements on proliferation that are negotiated have no guarantee of being ratified by the US Congress, making their implementation dependent on presidential discretion.

On the other hand, the nuclear agreement adopted in 2015 raised relevant issues from the perspective of international law. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action timeline is 10 to 15 years. This would terminate restrictions on Iranian activities and most of the verification and control provisions would expire. Iran would then be able to expand its nuclear facilities and would find it easier to develop nuclear weapons activities again. In addition, the legal nature of the Plan and the binding or non-binding nature of the commitments made under it have been the subject of intense discussion and analysis in the United States. The JCPOA does not constitute an international treaty. So, if the JCPOA was considered to be a non-binding agreement, from the perspective of international law there would be no obstacle for the US administration to withdraw from it and reinstate the sanctions previously adopted by the United States.

The JCPOA after 2018

As mentioned, the agreement has been held in abeyance since 2018 because the IAEA inspectors in Vienna will no longer have access to Iranian facilities.

Nowadays, one of the factors that have raised questions about Iran's nuclear documents is the IAEA's growing attention to Tehran's nuclear contempt. In March 2020, the IAEA "identified a number of questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at three locations in Iran". The agency's Director General Rafael Grossi stated: "The fact that we found traces (of uranium) is very important. That means there is the possibility of nuclear activities and material that are not under international supervision and about which we know not the origin or the intent".

The IAEA also revealed that the Iranian regime was violating all the restrictions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The Iranian leader argued that the US first violated the terms of the JCPOA when it unilaterally withdrew the terms of the JCPOA in 2018 to prove its reason for violating the nuclear agreement.

In the face of the economic crisis, the country has been hit again by the recent sanctions imposed by the United States. Tehran ignores the international community and tries to get through the signatory countries of the agreement, especially the United States, claiming that if they return to compliance with their obligations, Iran will also quickly return to compliance with the treaty. This approach has put strong pressure on the new US government from the beginning. Joe Biden's advisors suggested that the agreement could be considered again. But if Washington is faced with Tehran's full violation of the treaty, it will be difficult to defend such a return to the JCPOA.

In order to maintain world security, the international community must not succumb to Iran's warnings. Tehran has long issued empty threats to force the world to accept its demands. For example, in January 2020, when the UK, France and Germany triggered the JCPOA's dispute settlement mechanism, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a direct warning, saying: "If Europeans, instead of keeping to their commitments and making Iran benefit from the lifting of sanctions, misuse the dispute resolution mechanism, they'll need to be prepared for the consequences that they have been informed about earlier".

Conclusions

The purpose of the agreement is to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power that would exert pressure on neighboring countries and further destabilize the region. For example, Tehran's military influence is already keeping the war going in Syria and hampering international peace efforts. A nuclear Iran is a frightening sight in the West.

The rising in tensions between Iran and the United States since the latter unilaterally abandoned the JCPOA has increased the deep mistrust already separating both countries. Under such conditions, a return to the JCPOA as it was before 2018 seems hardly imaginable. A renovated agreement, however, is baldly needed to limit the possibilities of proliferation in an already too instable region. Will that be possible?

After referendums in 2018 and 2019, the Guatemalan government submitted its report to The Hague in 2020 and the Belizean government has one year to reply.

Guatemala presented its position before the International Court of Justice in The Hague last December, with a half year delay attributed to the emergency status of Covid-19; now Belize will have one year to respond. Although the ICJ will then take its time to draft a judgment, it can be said that the territorial dispute between the two neighbors has begun its final stretch, considering that the dispute over this Central American enclave dates back to the 18th century.

Coats of arms of Guatemala (left) and Belize (right) on their respective flags.

article / Álvaro de Lecea

The territorial conflict between Guatemala and Belize has its roots in the struggle between the Spanish Empire in America and the activity of England in the Caribbean during the colonial era. The inaction of the Spanish Crown at the end of the 18th century in the face of British invasions in what is now Belize, which at that time was Spanish territory, allowed the English to establish a foothold in Central America and begin to exploit continental lands in search of precious woods, such as palo de tinte and mahogany. However, the reservations placed by Guatemala on part of the Belizean land - it claims more than 11,000 km2, almost half of the neighboring country; it also claims the corresponding maritime extension and some cays - generated a status of tension and conflict that has been maintained to the present day.

In 2008, both countries decided to hold referendums on the possibility of taking the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), so that it could rule on the division of sovereignty. The Belizeans approved to take that step in 2018 and the Guatemalans the following year. The issue was formalized before the ICJ in The Hague on June 12, 2019.

Historical context

The territory of present-day Belize was colonized by Spain in the mid-16th century, as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and dependent on the captaincy of Guatemala. However, since there were no mineral resources there and there was hardly any population, the metropolis paid little attention to the area. This scarce Spanish presence favored the attack of pirates and to avoid them, the Spanish Crown allowed an increasing English exploitative activity in exchange for defense. England carried out a similar penetration in the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua, but while the Spanish managed to expel the English from there, in the area of Belize they consolidated their settlement and finally obtained the territory by the Treaty of Paris of 1783, by which Spain disengaged itself from that Central American corner. That concession and another one three years later covered only 6,685 km2, a space close to the coast that England later enlarged, inland and to the south, since Spain was not active in the area. Since then, the enclave has been known as "British Honduras".

The cession did not take into account the claims of the Guatemalans, who considered the space between the Sarstún and Sibún rivers as their own. Both with west-east course, the first draws, in the south of what is now Belize, the border with Guatemala; the other, further north, runs through the center of Belize, with mouth next to its capital, splitting the country in two. However, given the urgency of international recognition when it declared its independence in 1821, Guatemala signed several agreements with England, the great power of the time, to ensure the viability of the new state. One of them was the Aycinena-Wyke Treaty (1859), by which Guatemala accepted the Belizean borders in exchange for the construction of a road that would improve its access from its capital to the Caribbean. However, both parties blamed the other for not complying with the Treaty (the road was not built, for example) and Guatemala declared it null and void in 1939.

In the Constitution promulgated in 1946, Guatemala included the claim in the drafting, and has insisted on that position since the neighboring country, under the name of Belize, gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1981. Already in 1978 the UN approved a resolution guaranteeing the rights to self-determination and territorial protection of the Belizean people, which also called for a peaceful resolution of the neighboring conflict. Guatemala did not recognize the existence of the new sovereign state until 1991 and even today continues to place some limits on the progressive coupling of Belize in the Central American Integration System. Because of its English matrix, Belize has historically maintained a closer relationship with the English-speaking Caribbean islands.

Map of Central America and, in detail, the territorial dispute between Guatemala and Belize [Rei-artur / Janitoalevic Bettyreategui].

Adjacency Line and the role of the OAS

Since 2000, the Organization of American States (OAS), of which both nations are members, has mediated between the two countries. That same year, the OAS brokered an agreement with the goal of fostering trust and negotiations between the two neighbors. In order to achieve these objectives, the OAS, through its Peace Fund, actively supported the search for a solution by providing technical and political support. In fact, thanks to this rapprochement, talks on the dispute were resumed and the creation of the "Adjacency Line" was agreed upon.

This is an imaginary line that basically follows the line that from north to south has been "de facto" separating the two countries and is where most of the tensions take place. Over the years, both sides have increased their military presence there, in response to incidents attributed to the other side. Due to these frequent discussions, in 2015 Belize had to request financial aid from the British navy. Precisely in this Adjacency Zone is located an OAS office, whose purpose is to promote contacts between the communities and to verify certain transgressions to the agreements already signed.

One of the most promising developments that took place under the umbrella of the OAS was the signature in 2008 of what was called the "specialagreement between Guatemala and Belize to submit Guatemala's territorial, insular and maritime claim to the International Court of Justice". Under this agreement , both countries undertook to submit to simultaneous popular consultations on the acceptance of the Court's mediation. However, in 2015, through the protocol of the Special agreement between Belize and Guatemala, it was allowed that such popular consultations would not be held at the same time. Both parties committed to accept the Court's decision as "decisive and binding" and to comply with and implement it "fully and in good faith".

The Hague and the impact of the future resolution

The referendums were held in 2018, in the case of Guatemala, and in 2019, in the case of Belize. Although the percentages of both popular consultations were somewhat disparate, the results were positive. In Belize, the yes vote obtained 55.37% of the votes and the no vote, 44.63%. In Guatemala, the results were much more favorable for the yes vote, with 95.88% of the votes, compared to 4.12% for the no vote.

These results show how the Belizeans look askance at the decision of The Hague because, although with the final determination of the border they will close forever any claim, they risk losing part of their territory. On the other hand, the prospect of gain is greater in the Guatemalan case, because if its proposal is accepted -or at least part of it- it would strategically expand its access to the Caribbean, now somewhat limited, and in the case of losing, it would simply remain as it has been until now, which is not a serious problem for the country.

The definition of a clear and respected border is necessary at this point. The adjacent line, observed by the OAS peace and security mission statement , has managed to limit tensions between the two countries, but the reality is that certain incidents continue to take place in this unprotected zone. These incidents, such as the murders of citizens of both countries or mistreatment attributed to the Guatemalan military, cause the conflict to drag on and tensions to rise. On the other hand, the fact that there is no clear definition of borders facilitates drug trafficking and smuggling.

This conflict has also affected Belize's economic and trade relations with its neighbors in the region, especially Mexico and Honduras. Not only due to the lack of land boundaries, but also maritime. This area is very rich in natural resources and has the second largest coral reef reservation in the world, after Australia. In addition, this has, as expected, affected bilateral relations between the two countries. While the regional organizations are betting on a more relevant regional integration, the tensions between Belize and Guatemala prevent any improvement in this aspect.

The President of Guatemala has stated that, regardless of the result the Tribunal, he intends to strengthen bilateral relations, especially in areas such as trade and tourism, with neighboring Belize. For their part, the Caricom heads of state expressed in October 2020 their support for Belize, their enthusiasm for the ICJ's intervention and their congratulations to the OAS for its mediation work.

The country left the cartel in order to expand its pumping, but the Covid-19 crisis has cut extraction volumes by 10.8%.

Construction of a variant of the oil pipeline that crosses the Andes, from the Ecuadorian Amazon to the Pacific [Petroecuador].

ANALYSIS / Jack Acrich and Alejandro Haro

Ecuador left the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on January 1, 2020 to avoid having to continue to join the production cuts imposed by the group and which it agreed to in order to cause a rise in the world price of crude oil. Ecuador preferred to sell more barrels, even at a lower price, because by exporting more in the last written request it could increase its income and thus get out of its serious financial status , which the coronavirus emergency has only accentuated, with a fall in GDP in 2020 for the moment estimated at 9.5%.

However, domestic economic difficulties and the difficult international situation have not only prevented Ecuador from expanding pumping, but oil production has fallen by 10.8% in the last year. Ecuador extracted an average 472,000 barrels of oil per day in 2020, weighed down especially by the sharp reduction in activity in April with the start of the confinement and then not compensated for the rest of the year. This is an Issue that is below the 500,000 line that had always been exceeded in recent years (in 2019 production was 528,000), agreement to figures from Petroecuador, the state hydrocarbons company. The reduction in world consumption during the Covid-19 year also had its correlation in a decrease in the consumption of derivatives in Ecuador, especially gasoline and diesel, which fell by 18.5%.

International investment constrained by the pandemic context and reduced consumption marked a status that could hardly lead to an increase in production. In 2020, Ecuador had a drop in the value of oil exports of 42.1% (double that of total exports), which combined with a deterioration in the price of a barrel of oil meant a 40.9% reduction in public revenues from the oil sector, according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Figures for the first two months of 2021 indicate an accentuation of the fall in crude oil production (-4.73% compared to January and February 2020) and derivatives (-7.47%), as well as their export (-22.8%).

expense cuts and search for oil revenues

Exiting OPEC did not pose any particular risk for Ecuador, which had already left the organization in a previous period. Its scant weight in OPEC and the progressively diminishing strength of the cartel itself meant that Ecuador's attempt to go it alone was not particularly costly. The absolute priority of Lenín Moreno's government was to rebalance the country's macroeconomic picture - battered by the high public expense of his predecessor, Rafael Correa - and for this it urgently needed an increase in state revenues, an important part of which in Ecuador normally comes from the hydrocarbons sector.

When he became president in 2017, Moreno set out to steer the country toward more market-friendly energy policies. The president was determined to break with the nationalist approach of his predecessor, whose policies discouraged foreign investment in the oil industry while increasing public debt significantly. Among the most costly programs undertaken by Correa was to maintain high subsidies for energy consumption, with especially low prices for fuels.

In order to overcome the financial status Ecuador was in when he took office, Moreno approached the IMF to apply for financial aid , and committed to structural reforms, including the gradual dismantling of subsidies. These reforms, however, were not well received and the social unrest that spread throughout the country put further pressure on the oil industry.

In February 2019, Moreno negotiated an IMF loan to help reduce the country's large fiscal deficit and huge external debt, which by the end of 2018 had reached 46.1% of GDP and twelve months later would reach 51.8%. The committed "bailout" was US$10.2 billion, of which US$6.5 billion came from the IMF and the rest from other international agencies.

As part of austerity measures agreed with the IMF, Moreno was forced to end government subsidies that had kept gasoline prices low for decades. In early October 2019 he announced a plan of cuts to save $2.27 billion a year, essentially withdrawing the fuel subsidy. The advertisement the decree, which would later be annulled, immediately provoked massive protests, both from transporters and low-income sectors, as well as very singularly from indigenous communities. The street violence forced the president to leave Quito for a few days and move to Guayaquil.

To solve the need for income, Moreno sought to rely on the oil industry, which represents approximately one third of the country's total exports. He initially expressed the intention of seeking to increase from the 545,000 barrels per day of crude oil then being produced to almost 700,000 barrels per day.

One of the measures taken in this direction was to promote the development and exploitation of the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha field, with the goal of increasing oil production by 90,000 barrels per day. This decision met with social rejection due to the environmental damage it could cause, since the Yasuní National Park, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, has been declared a protected area. The government then decided to postpone the expansion of production, first to 2021 and then to 2022. The civil service examination was especially led by the indigenous communities, in a mobilization that partly explains the success in the 2021 presidential elections of the indigenous movement Pachakutik, of Yaku Perez, who almost made it to the second round.

Another measure was to reverse some of the emblematic policies of his predecessor. For example, he eliminated the service contracts introduced under President Correa, thus restoring the production sharing contract model . This reform was more favorable to international oil companies, as it allowed them to retain a share of the oil reserves; it also offered them financial incentives to invest in the country. The new model was first applied in the bids awarded during the twelfth Intracampos oil round, in the Oriente region, which is rich in oil reserves. Under this contract modality , the Moreno administration awarded seven of the eight exploration blocks on offer with a total investment of more than US$1.17 billion.

Drop in production

Due to the urgency of increasing revenues, Ecuador resisted the production cut plan that OPEC has been imposing on its members at various times since the abrupt drop in oil prices in 2014. Initially, the organization accepted that some of its members, with moderate or very low production volumes compared to previous figures, as was the case of Venezuela, maintain their extraction rates. But since it could no longer be an exception, Ecuador preferred to announce at the end of 2019 its departure from OPEC and not have to reduce its production to 508,000 barrels per day in 2020, which was the quota set for it.

What is striking is that last year production finally fell from 528,000 barrels per day in 2019 to 472,000 (a drop of 10.8%), and no longer because of decisions taken at OPEC headquarters in Vienna but because of the difficulties of various subject brought about by the Covid-19 crisis. Petroecuador's oil exports fell from 331,321 barrels per day in 2019 to 316,000, a 4.6% drop that in monetary terms was greater, since the price of a barrel of Ecuadorian mixed oil went from $55.3 in 2019 to $34.7 in 2020.

One element that makes it difficult for Ecuador to take better advantage of its hydrocarbon potential is that it has insufficient infrastructure for refining crude oil. The country has three refineries, whose capacity does not reach the domestic consumption of oil derivatives, so it must import diesel, naphtha and other products. This means that in times of high crude oil prices Ecuador benefits from exports, but it must also pay a higher invoice for imports of derivatives. In 2020, Petroecuador had to import 137,300 barrels per day.

The complicated situation caused by the pandemic has continued to put pressure on Ecuador's public debt, which reached 66.4% at the end of 2020, despite all the attempts made by the Moreno government to reduce it.

The next president, who is due to take office at the end of May 2021, will not have much room for maneuver due to these debt volumes and will have to continue relying on higher oil revenues to balance public finances. The expense 's expansionary policies during Correa's presidency took place in the context of the commodity super-cycle, which benefited South America so much, but that does not seem likely to be repeated in the short term.

OPEC weight loss

With its departure from OPEC, Ecuador left an international organization that was created in 1960 with the goal of regulating the world oil market and controlling crude oil prices to some extent. The founding countries were Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Over time other countries joined OPEC and today it is made up of thirteen members: Algeria, Angola, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates and the five founding countries. When it was created, the organization sought to establish, acting as a cartel, a kind of counterweight to a series of Western energy transnationals, mainly from the United States and the United Kingdom. OPEC members account for around 40% of the world's oil production and contain around 80% of the planet's proven oil reserves. To be admitted as a member of the organization it is necessary to have considerable oil exports and to share those of the member countries.

Ecuador joined OPEC in 1973, but suspended its membership in 1992. Subsequently, in 2007 it resumed active participation until leave in January 2020. Considering that Ecuador was one of OPEC's smaller members, it did not really have a great influence in the organization and its exit does not represent any substantial detriment to it. However, it constitutes a second departure in just one year, as Qatar, which had a greater specific weight in the cartel, left it on January 1, 2019. In its case, its divorce from OPEC was due to other reasons, such as its tensions with Saudi Arabia and its desire to focus on the gas sector, of which it is one of the world's largest producers.

These movements are an example of the moment of loss of influence that OPEC is going through. This has led it to establish alliances with producers that are not part of the organization, such as Russia and some other countries forming OPEC+. With the decline of oil production in Venezuela and the decrease in the capacity of other members to control their production and exports, Saudi Arabia has become increasingly consolidated as the leader of the cartel, representing close to a third of its total production, with approximately 9.4 million barrels per day. In a way, Saudi Arabia and Russia remain, hand in hand, as the main countries seeking to cut production in an attempt to increase prices. Additionally, thanks to fracking, the United States has become the largest oil producer, representing a great influence in the international crude oil market, affecting the power that OPEC may have.

[Nigel Gould-Davies, Tectonic Politics. Global Political Risk in an Age of Transformation, (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2019) 174 pp].

March 17, 2021

review / Emili J. Blasco

The discipline of "political risk" can be conceived in a restrictive way, as usual, referring to the prospective analysis of disruptions that may affect political and social stability and the regulatory framework , and therefore the interests of investors, companies and economic sectors, by the actions of states and governments. This conception, which globalization also leads to call "geopolitical risk", is only a part - in fact, the minor part - of Nigel Gould-Davies' approach, who, by putting the adjective "global" in the degree scroll of his book, is referring to a conceptually more general political risk, merged with fields such as corporate reputation, public affairs and business diplomacy.

The author claims that the relationship with the environment is essential for a business and calls for a company's management to always have an engagement manager (which could be translated as involvement, commitment, participation or partnership): an engager with the same level of authority as the engineer who knows how to manufacture the product and the salesperson who knows how to monetize it; someone specialized in "persuading" external actors - governments and civil society groups - of the company's goodness, creating "alignments" that are beneficial to the business. Engagement at both national and international level, if the activity or interests go beyond the company's own borders, giving rise to "corporate diplomacy", since the current "increase in political risks means that a company needs a foreign policy".

Gould-Davies considers that these more political issues are not an "impertinent intrusion" into markets, but are endogenous to them. So business, in addition to attending to production and marketing issues, must also pay equal attention to a third dimension: involvement with political and social agents to avoid or overcome risks that arise in this external sphere. This is "a third activity and a third role to carry it out: a new political piece in the mechanism of value creation".

The author emphasizes the management of the present and the very short-term future, and downplays the importance of the short- and medium-term prospective analysis that has been the preserve of political risk analysts. He complains that the latter have paid "too much attention to prediction, with its frequent disappointments, and too little to engagement"; " engagement, on the other hand, requires relatively little prediction beyond the short term." "There is a lot of unbalanced political risk activity, producing a great deal of analysis and prediction, but much less guidance on what to do."

Moreover, unlike the usual political risk analysis, which is more focused on the actions of states or governments, the concept used by the author extends very specifically to the pressures that can derive from civil society. "The new political risks emerge from non-state social forces: consumers, investors, public opinion, civil society, local communities and the media. They do not seek to challenge ownership or rights to use productive assets. They do not seek to destroy, take or block. Their focus is narrower: they usually seek to regulate the terms on which production and trade take place (...) Their motive is usually an ethical commitment to justice and equity. Their goal is to mitigate the broad adverse impacts of corporate activity on others; they are selfless rather than selfish."

Gould-Davies notes that while previously the norm was government threats in development or emerging countries, which have less stable societies and an unconsolidated rule of law, today pressures on business are increasing in developed nations. "The likelihood of major conflict and de-globalization is increasing, but more importantly, its impact is shifting to the developed world," he writes. Moreover, the fact that there is less and less social peace in Western countries is an increasingly disturbing element: "Sustained civil violence in a highly developed country is no longer a black swan, but a gray swan: unlikely but conceivable; possible to define, but impossible to predict."

By focusing on the management the present and characterizing the activity as engagement, in itself very focused on communication, Gould-Davis stretches too far the classic concept of political risk, which has been more oriented towards analysis and prospecting. In doing so, he treads on activities that are undergoing extensive development in their own right, such as corporate communication and reputation or influencing regulatory issues through lobbying or public affairs management functions.

The hydrocarbon field is the central axis of the Gas 2020-2023 Plan of President Alberto Fernández, which subsidizes part of the investment

Activity of YPF, Argentina's state-owned hydrocarbons company [YPF].

ANALYSIS / Ignacio Urbasos Arbeloa

Argentina is facing a deep economic crisis that is having a severe impact on the standard of living of its citizens. The country, which had managed to emerge with enormous sacrifices from the 2001 corralito, is seeing its leaders committing the same macroeconomic recklessness that led the national Economics to collapse. After a hugely disappointing mandate of Mauricio Macri and his economic "gradualism", the new administration of Alberto Fernandez has inherited a very delicate status , now aggravated by the global and national crisis generated by Covid-19. The public debt already represents almost 100% of the GDP, the Argentine peso is worth less than 90 units per US dollar, while the public deficit persists. Economics remains in recession, accumulating four years of decline. The IMF, which lent nearly $44 billion to Argentina in 2018 in the largest loan in the institution's history, has begun to lose patience with the lack of structural reforms and hints of debt restructuring by the government. In this critical status , Argentines are looking to the development of the unconventional oil industry as a possible way out of the economic crisis. In particular, the Vaca Muerta super field has been the focus of attention of international investors, government and citizens for a decade, being a very promising project not Exempt environmental and technical challenges.

The energy sector in Argentina: a history of fluctuations

The oil sector in Argentina has more than 100 years of history since oil was discovered in the Patagonian desert in 1907. The geographical difficulties of the area -lack of water, distance from Buenos Aires and saline winds of more than 100 km/h- made the project advance very slowly until the outbreak of the First World War. The European conflict interrupted coal imports from England, which up to that date constituted 95% of Argentina's energy consumption. The emergence of oil in the interwar period as a strategic raw subject revalued the sector, which began to receive huge foreign and domestic investments in the 1920's. By 1921 YPF was created, the first state-owned oil business in Latin America, with energy self-sufficiency as its main goal. The country's political upheaval during the so-called Década Infame (1930-43) and the effects of the Great Depression damaged the incipient oil sector. The years of Perón's government saw a timid take-off of the oil industry with the opening of the sector to foreign companies and the construction of the first oil pipelines. In 1958 Arturo Frondizi became President of Argentina and sanctioned the Hydrocarbons Law of 1958, achieving an impressive development of the sector in only 4 years with an immense public and private investment policy that tripled oil production, extended the network of gas pipelines and generalized the access of industry and households to natural gas. The oil regime in Argentina maintained the ownership of the resource in the hands of the state, but allowed the participation of private and foreign companies in the production process.

Since the successful decade of the 1960s in oil subject , the sector entered a period of relative stagnation in parallel with Argentina's chaotic politics and Economics at the time. The 1970s was a complex journey in the desert for YPF, mired in enormous debt and unable to increase production and ensure the longed-for self-sufficiency.

With the so-called Washington Consensus and the arrival of Carlos Menem to the presidency in 1990, YPF was privatized and the state monopoly over the sector was fragmented. By 1998, YPF was fully privatized under the ownership of Repsol, which controlled 97.5% of its capital. It was in the period 1996-2003 when maximum oil production was reached, exporting natural gas to Chile, Brazil and Uruguay, and exceeding 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day in net exports.

However, a change in trend soon began with state intervention in the market. Domestic consumption with fixed sales prices for oil producers was less attractive than the export market, encouraging private companies to overproduce in order to export oil and increase revenues exponentially. With the rise in oil prices during the so-called "commodity super-cycle" during the first decade of this century, the price difference between exports and domestic sales increased, generating a real incentive to focus on production. Exploration was thus left in the background, since domestic consumption was growing rapidly due to tax incentives and a near horizon was foreseen without the possibility of exports and, therefore, lower income from the increase in reserves.

The 2001 crisis was overcome in a context of fiscal and trade surplus, which made it possible to recover the confidence of international creditors and reduce the public debt Issue . The energy sector was precisely the main driver of this recovery, accounting for more than half of the trade surplus in the 2004-2006 period and one of Argentina's main sources of fiscal revenues. However, as mentioned above, this production was not sustainable due to the existence of a fiscal framework that distorted oil companies' incentives in favor of immediate consumption without investing in exploration. By 2004, a new tariff was applied to crude oil exports that floated on the basis of the international price of crude oil, reaching 45% if the price was above US$45. The excessively rentier approach of Néstor Kirchner's presidency ended up dilapidating the incentives for investment by the sector, although it is true that they allowed for a spectacular increase in derived fiscal revenues, boosting Argentina's generous social and debt payment plans. As a good sample this decline in exploration, in the 1980s more than 100 exploratory wells were drilled annually, in 1990 the figure exceeded 90 and by 2010 the figure was 26 wells per year. This figure is especially dramatic if we take into account the dynamics that the oil and gas sector usually follows, with large investments in exploration and infrastructure in times of high prices, as was the case between 2001-2014. 

In 2011, after a decade of debates on the oil sector in Argentina, President Cristina Fernández decided to expropriate 51% of the shares of YPF held by Repsol, citing reasons of energy sovereignty and the decline of the sector. This decision followed the line taken by Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales in 2006 to increase the weight of the State in the hydrocarbons sector at a time of electoral success for the Latin American left. The expropriation took place the same year that Argentina became a net energy importer and coincided with the finding of the large shale reserves in Neuquén precisely by YPF, today known as Vaca Muerta. YPF at that time was the direct producer of approximately one third of Argentina's total Issue . The expropriation took place at the same time as the imposition of the "cepo cambiario", a capital control system that made private foreign investment in the sector even less attractive. Not only was the country unable to recover its energy self-sufficiency, but it also entered a period of intense imports that hindered access to dollars and produced a large part of the macroeconomic imbalance of the current economic crisis.

The arrival of Mauricio Macri in 2015 foresaw a new stage for the sector with policies more favorable to private initiative. One of the first measures was to establish a fixed price at the "wellhead" of Vaca Muerta's operations with the idea of encouraging the start-up of projects. As the economic crisis worsened, the unpopular measure of increasing electricity and fuel prices by more than 30% was chosen, generating enormous discontent in the context of a constant devaluation of the Argentine peso and the rising cost of living. The Energy portfolio was marked by enormous instability, with three different ministers who generated enormous legal insecurity by constantly changing the regulatory framework for hydrocarbons. Renewable solar and wind energy, boosted by a new energy plan and a greater liberalization of investments, managed to double their energy contribution during Mauricio Macri's stay in the Casa Rosada.

The first years of Alberto Fernández have been marked by an unconditional support to the hydrocarbons sector, being Vaca Muerta the central axis of his energy policy, announcing the Gas Plan 2020-2023 that will subsidize part of the investment in the sector. On the other hand, despite the context of health emergency during 2020, 39 renewable energy projects were installed, with an installed power of about 1.5 GW, which represents an increase of almost 60% over the previous year. In any case, the continuity of this growth will depend on the access to foreign currency in the country, essential to be able to buy panels and windmills from abroad. The renewable energy boom in Argentina led Danish Vestas to install the first windmill assembly plant in the country in 2018, which already has several plants producing solar panels to supply domestic demand.

Characteristics of Vaca Muerta

Vaca Muerta is not a field from a technical point of view, it is a sedimentary training of enormous magnitude and has scattered deposits of natural gas and oil that can only be exploited with unconventional techniques: hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. These characteristics make Vaca Muerta a complex activity, which requires attracting as much talent as possible, especially from international players with experience in the exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons. Likewise, conditions in the province of Neuquén are complex considering the scarcity of rainfall and the importance of the fruit and vegetable industry, in direct competition with the water resources required for the exploitation of unconventional oil.

Since its finding, the potential of Vaca Muerta has been compared to that of the Eagle Ford basin in the United States, a producer of more than one million barrels per day. Evidently, the Neuquén region has neither the oil business ecosystem of Texas nor its fiscal facilities, making what could be geologically similar in reality two totally different stories. In December 2020 Vaca Muerte produced 124,000 barrels of oil per day, a figure that is expected to gradually increase throughout this year to reach 150,000 barrels per day, about 30% of the 470,000 barrels per day that Argentina produced in 2020. Natural gas follows a slower process, pending the development of infrastructure that will allow the transportation of large volumes of gas to consumption and export centers. In this regard, Fernández announced in November 2020 the Argentine Gas Production Promotion Plan 2020-2023 with which the Casa Rosada seeks to save dollars via import substitution. The plan facilitates the acquisition of dollars for investors and improves the maximum selling price of natural gas by almost 50%, to US$3.70 per mbtu, in the hope of receiving the necessary investment, estimated at US$6.5 billion, to achieve gas self-sufficiency. Argentina already has the capacity to export natural gas to Chile, Uruguay and Brazil through pipelines. Unfortunately, the floating vessel exporting natural gas from Vaca Muerte left Argentina at the end of 2020 after YPF unilaterally broke the ten-year contract with the vessel's owner, Exmar, citing economic difficulties, limiting the capacity to sell natural gas outside the continent.  

One of the great advantages of Vaca Muerta is the presence of international companies with experience in the aforementioned US unconventional oil basins. The learning curve of the North American fracking sector after 2014 is being applied in Vaca Muerta, which has seen drilling costs drop by 50% since 2014 while gaining in productivity. The arrival of US capital may accelerate if Joe Biden's administration fiscally and environmentally restricts oil activities in the country, agreement to his environmentalist diary . Currently the main operator in Vaca Muerta after YPF is Chevron, followed by Tecpetrol, Wintershell, Shell, Total and Pluspetrol, in an ecosystem with 18 oil companies working in different blocks.

Vaca Muerta as a national strategy

It is clear that achieving energy self-sufficiency will help Argentina's macroeconomic problems, the main headache for its citizens in recent years. Not Exempt environmental risk, Vaca Muerta can be a lifeline for a country whose international credibility is at historic lows. The pro-hydrocarbon narrative assumed by Alberto Fernandez follows the line of his Mexican counterpart Andres Lopez Obrador, with whom guide intends to lead a new moderate left-wing axis in Latin America. The ghost of the nationalization of YPF by the now vice-president Cristina Fernandez, as well as the recent breach of contract with Exmar continue to generate uncertainty among international investors. On the other hand, the poor financial status of YPF, the main player in Vaca Muerta, with a debt of more than US$ 8 billion, is a major burden for the country's oil expectations. Likewise, Vaca Muerta is far from realizing its potential, with significant but insufficient production to guarantee revenues that would bring about a radical change in Argentina's economic and social status . In order to guarantee its success, a context of favorable oil prices and the fluid arrival of foreign investors are needed. Two variables that cannot be taken for granted given the Argentine political context and the increasingly strong decarbonization policy of the traditional oil companies.

The big question now is how to reconcile large-scale fossil fuel development with Argentina's latest climate change commitments: to reduce CO2 emissions by 19% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Similarly, the promising trajectory in renewable energy development during Mauricio Macri's presidency may lose momentum if the oil and gas sector attracts public and private investment, displacing solar and wind.

Vaca Muerta will most probably advance slowly but surely as international oil prices stabilize upwards. The possibility of generating foreign currency and boosting an Economics on the verge of collapse should not be underestimated, but expecting Vaca Muerta to solve Argentina's problems by itself can only end in a new episode of frustration in the southern country.

Qatar's economic reinforcement and expanded relations with Russia, China and Turkey have made the blockade imposed by its Gulf neighbors less effective.

It is a reality: Qatar has won its battle against the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia after more than three years of diplomatic rupture during which the two countries, together with other Arab neighbors, isolated the Qatari peninsula commercially and territorially. Economic and geopolitical reasons explain why the blockade imposed has finally faded away without Qatar giving in to its autonomous diplomatic line.

Qatar's emir Tamim Al Thani at the 2018 Munich Security lecture [Kuhlmann/MSC].

article / Sebastián Bruzzone

In June 2017, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Yemen and the Maldives accused the Al Thani family of supporting Islamic terrorism and the Muslim Brotherhood and initiated a total blockade on trade to and from Qatar until Doha complied with thirteen conditions. However, last January 5, 2021, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman welcomed Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with an unexpected embrace in the Saudi city of Al-Ula, sealing the end of yet another dark chapter in the modern history of the Persian Gulf. But how many of the thirteen demands has Qatar fulfilled to reconcile with its neighbors? None.

As if nothing had happened. Tamim Al Thani arrived in Saudi Arabia to participate in the 41st Gulf Cooperation committee (GCC) Summit where member states pledged efforts to promote solidarity, stability and multilateralism in the face of challenges in the region, which is confronted by Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program, as well as its sabotage and destruction plans. In addition, the GCC as a whole appreciated the mediating role of Kuwait, then U.S. President Donald J. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The meeting of the Gulf Arab leaders has been the thaw in the political desert after a storm of mutual accusations and instability in what was called the "Qatar diplomatic crisis"; this rapprochement, as an immediate effect, clears the normal preparation of the soccer World Cup scheduled to take place in Qatar next year. The return of regional and diplomatic understanding is always positive in urgent situations such as an economic crisis, a world pandemic or a common Shiite enemy arming missiles on the other side of the sea. In any case, the Qatar of the Al Thani can be crowned as the winner of the economic pulse against the Emirati Al Nahyan and the Saudi Al Saud unable to suffocate the small peninsula.

The factors

The relevant question brings us back to the initial degree scroll prior to these lines: how has Qatar managed to withstand the pressure without buckling in the slightest in the face of the thirteen conditions demanded in 2017? Several factors contribute to explaining it.

First, the injection of capital by the QIA (Qatar Investment Authority). At the beginning of the blockade, the banking system suffered a capital flight of more than $30 billion and foreign investment fell sharply. The Qatari sovereign wealth fund responded by providing $38.5 billion to provide liquidity to the banks and revive the Economics. The sudden trade blockade by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia led to a financial panic that prompted foreign investors, and even Qatari residents, to transfer their assets out of the country and liquidate their positions in fear of a market collapse.

Second, the rapprochement with Turkey. In 2018, Qatar came to Turkey's rescue by committing to invest $15 billion in Turkish subject assets and, in 2020, to execute a currency swap agreement in order to raise the value of the Turkish lira. In reciprocity, Turkey increased commodity exports to Qatar by 29% and increased its military presence in the Qatari peninsula in case of a possible invasion or attack by its neighbors, building a second Turkish military base near Doha. In addition, as an internal reinforcement measure, the Qatari government has invested more than $30 billion in military equipment, artillery, submarines and aircraft from American companies.

Third, the rapprochement with Iran. Qatar shares with the Persian country the South Pars North Dome gas field, considered the largest in the world, and positioned itself as a mediator between the Trump Administration and the Ayatollah government. Since 2017, Iran has supplied 100,000 tons of food daily to Doha in the face of a potential food crisis caused by the blockade of the only land border with Saudi Arabia through which 40% of the food was entering.

Fourth, the rapprochement with Russia and China. The Qatari sovereign wealth fund acquired a 19% stake in Rosneft, opening the door to a partnership between the Russian oil company and Qatar Petroleum and to more joint ventures between the two nations. In the same vein, Qatar Airways increased its stake to 5% of the capital of China Southern Airlines.

Fifth, its reinforcement as the world's leading exporter of LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas). It is important to know that Qatar's main economic engine is gas, not oil. That is why, in 2020, the Qatari government initiated its expansion plan by approving a $50 billion investment to expand its liquefaction and LNG carrier capacity, and a $29 billion investment to build more offshore offshore offshore platforms in North Dome. The Qatari government has forecast that its LNG production will grow by 40% by 2027, from 77 to 110 million tons per year.

We should keep in mind that LNG transportation is much safer, cleaner, greener and cheaper than oil transportation. Moreover, Royal Dutch Shell predicted in report "Annual LNG Outlook Report 2019" that global LNG demand would double by 2040. If this forecast is confirmed, Qatar would be on the threshold of impressive economic growth in the coming decades. It is therefore in its best interest in that status to maintain its solvent public coffers and a stable political climate in the Middle East region. As if that were not enough, last November 2020, Tamim Al Thani announced that future state budgets will be configured on the basis of a fictitious price of $40 per barrel, a value considerably smaller than the WTI Oil Barrel or Brent Oil Barrel which is around $60-70. In other words, the Qatari government will index its public expense considering the volatility of hydrocarbon prices. In other words, Qatar seeks to be proactive in the face of a possible collapse in the price of crude oil, promoting an efficient public expense policy.

And sixth, the maintenance of the Qatar Investment Authority's investment portfolio , valued at $300 billion. The assets of the Qatari sovereign wealth fund constitute a life insurance policy for the country, which can order its liquidation in situations of extreme need.

Qatar has a very important role to play in the future of the Persian Gulf. The Al Thani dynasty has demonstrated its capacity for political and economic management and, above all, its great foresight for the future vis-à-vis the other countries of the Gulf Cooperation committee . The small peninsular "pearl" has struck a blow on the table by imposing itself on the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, and on the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, who did not even show up in Al-Ula. This geopolitical move, plus the Biden Administration's decision to maintain its hard-line policy towards Iran, seems to guarantee the international isolation of the Persian country's ayatollah regime.

IDF soldiers during a study tour as part of Sunday culture, at the Ramon Crater Visitor Center [IDF].

ESSAY / Jairo Císcar

The geopolitical reality that exists in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean is incredibly complex, and within it the Arab-Israeli conflict stands out. If we pay attention to History, we can see that it is by no means a new conflict (outside its form): it can be traced back to more than 3,100 years ago. It is a land that has been permanently disputed; despite being the vast majority of it desert and very hostile to humans, it has been coveted and settled by multiple peoples and civilizations. The disputed territory, which stretches across what today is Israel, Palestine, and parts of Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria practically coincides with historic Canaan, the Promised Land of the Jewish people. Since those days, the control and prevalence of human groups over the territory was linked to military superiority, as the conflict was always latent. The presence of military, violence and conflict has been a constant aspect of societies established in the area; and, with geography and history, is fundamental to understand the current conflict and the functioning of the Israeli society.

As we have said, a priori it does not have great reasons for a fierce fight for the territory, but the reality is different: the disputed area is one of the key places in the geostrategy of the western and eastern world. This thin strip, between the Tigris and Euphrates (the Fertile Crescent, considered the cradle of the first civilizations) and the mouth of the Nile, although it does not enjoy great water or natural resources, is an area of high strategic value: it acts as a bridge between Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean (with Europe by sea). It is also a sacred place for the three great monotheistic religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the "Peoples of the Book", who group under their creeds more than half of the world's inhabitants. Thus, for millennia, the land of Israel has been abuzz with cultural and religious exchanges ... and of course, struggles for its control.

According to the Bible, the main para-historical account of these events, the first Israelites began to arrive in the Canaanite lands around 2000 BC, after God promised Abraham that land ".... To your descendants ..."[1] The massive arrival of Israelites would occur around 1400 BC, where they started a series of campaigns and expelled or assimilated the various Canaanite peoples such as the Philistines (of which the Palestinians claim to be descendants), until the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah finally united around the year 1000 BC under a monarchy that would come to dominate the region until their separation in 924 BC.

It is at this time that we can begin to speak of a people of Israel, who will inhabit this land uninterruptedly, under the rule of other great empires such as the Assyrian, the Babylonian, and the Macedonian, to finally end their existence under the Roman Empire. It is in 63 BC when Pompey conquered Jerusalem and occupied Judea, ending the freedom of the people of Israel. It will be in 70 AD, though, with the emperor Titus, when after a new Hebrew uprising the Second Temple of Jerusalem was razed, and the Diaspora of the Hebrew people began; that is, their emigration to other places across the East and West, living in small communities in which, suffering constant persecutions, they continued with their minds set on a future return to their "Promised Land". The population vacuum left by the Diaspora was then filled again by peoples present in the area, as well as by Arabs.

The current state of Israel

This review of the historical antiquity of the conflict is necessary because this is one with some very special characteristics: practically no other conflict is justified before such extremes by both parties with "sentimental" or dubious "legal" reasons.

The current state of Israel, founded in 1948 with the partition of the British Protectorate of Palestine, argues its existence in the need for a Jewish state that not only represents and welcomes such a community but also meets its own religious requirements, since in Judaism the Hebrew is spoken as the "chosen people of God", and Israel as its "Promised Land". So, being the state of Israel the direct heir of the ancient Hebrew people, it would become the legitimate occupier of the lands quoted in Genesis 15: 18-21. This is known as the concept of Greater Israel (see map)[2].

On the Palestinian side, they exhibit as their main argument thirteen centuries of Muslim rule (638-1920) over the region of Palestine, from the Orthodox caliphate to the Ottoman Empire. They claim that the Jewish presence in the region is primarily based on the massive immigration of Jews during the late 19th and 20th centuries, following the popularization of Zionism, as well as on the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians before, during and after the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, a fact known as the Nakba[3], and of many other Palestinians and Muslims in general since the beginning of the conflict. Some also base their historical claim on their origin as descendants of the Philistines.

However, although these arguments are weak, beyond historical conjecture, the reality is, nonetheless, that these aspirations have been the ones that have provoked the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This properly begins in the early 20th century, with the rise of Zionism in response to the growing anti-Semitism in Europe, and the Arab refusal to see Jews settled in the area of Palestine. During the years of the British Mandate for Palestine (1920-1948) there were the first episodes of great violence between Jews and Palestinians. Small terrorist actions by the Arabs against Kibbutzim, which were contested by Zionist organizations, became the daily norm. This turned into a spiral of violence and assassinations, with brutal episodes such as the Buraq and Hebron revolts, which ended with some 200 Jews killed by Arabs, and some 120 Arabs killed by the British army.[4] The Palestinian people were killed in a spiral of violence and assassinations.

Another dark episode of this time was the complicit relations between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Almin Al-Husseini, and the Nazi regime, united by a common diary regarding Jews. He had meetings with Adolf Hitler and gave them mutual support, as the extracts of their conversations collect[5]. But it will not be until the adoption of the "United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine" through Resolution 181 (II) of the General Assembly when the war broke out on a large scale.[6] The Jews accepted the plan, but the Arab League announced that, if it became effective, they would not hesitate to invade the territory.

And so, it was. On May 14, 1948, hours after the proclamation of the state of Israel by Ben-Gurion, Israel was invaded by a joint force of Egyptian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian troops. In this way, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War began, beginning a period of war that has not stopped until today, almost 72 years later. Despite the multiple peace agreements reached (with Egypt and Jordan), the dozens of United Nations resolutions, and the Oslo Accords, which established the roadmap for achieving a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine, conflicts continue, and they have seriously affected the development of the societies and peoples of the region.

The Israel Defense Forces

Despite the difficulties suffered since the day of its independence, Israel has managed to establish itself as the only effective democracy in the region, with a strong rule of law and a welfare state. It has a Human Development Index of 0.906, considered very high; is an example in education and development, being the third country in the world with more university graduates over the total population (20%) and is a world leader in R&D in technology. Meanwhile, the countries around it face serious difficulties, and in the case of Palestine, great misery. One of the keys to Israel's success and survival is, without a doubt, its Army. Without it, it would not have been able to lay the foundations of the country that it is today, as it would have been devastated by neighboring countries from the first day of its independence.

It is not daring to say that Israeli society is one of the most militarized in the world. It is even difficult to distinguish between Israel as a country or Israel as an army. There is no doubt that the structure of the country is based on the Army and on the concept of "one people". The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) act as the backbone of society and we find an overwhelming part of the country's top officials who have served as active soldiers. The paradigmatic example are the current leaders of the two main Knesset parties: Benny Ganz (former Chief of Staff of the IDF) and Benjamin Netanyahu (a veteran of the special forces in the 1970s, and combat wounded).

This influence exerted by the Tzahal[7] in the country is fundamentally due to three reasons. The first is the reality of war. Although, as we have previously commented, Israel is a prosperous country and practically equal to the rest of the western world, it lives in a reality of permanent conflict, both inside and outside its borders. When it is not carrying out large anti-terrorist operations such as Operation "Protective Edge," carried out in Gaza in 2014, it is in an internal fight against attacks by lone wolves (especially bloody recent episodes of knife attacks on Israeli civilians and military) and against rocket and missile launches from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli population has become accustomed to the sound of missile alarms, and to seeing the "Iron Dome" anti-missile system in operation. It is common for all houses to have small air raid shelters, as well as in public buildings and schools. In them, students learn how to behave in the face of an attack and basic security measures. The vision of the Army on the street is something completely common, whether it be armored vehicles rolling through the streets, fighters flying over the sky, or platoons of soldiers getting on the public bus with their full equipment. At this point, we must not forget the suffering in which the Palestinian population constantly lives, as well as its harsh living conditions, motivated not only by the Israeli blockade, but also by living under the government of political parties such as Al-Fatah or Hamas. The reality of war is especially present in the territories under dispute with other countries: the Golan Heights in Syria and the so-called Palestinian Territories (the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip). Military operations and clashes with insurgents are practically daily in these areas.

This permanent tension and the reality of war not only affect the population indirectly, but also directly with compulsory military service. Israel is the developed country that spends the most defense budget according to its GDP and its population.[8] Today, Israel invests 4.3% of its GDP in defense (not counting investment in industry and military R&D).[9] In the early 1980s, it came to invest around 22%. Its army has 670,000 soldiers, of whom 170,000 are professionals, and 35.9% of its population (just over 3 million) are ready for combat. It is estimated that the country can carry out a general mobilization around 48-72 hours. Its military strength is based not only on its technological vanguard in terms of weapons systems such as the F-35 (and atomic arsenal), material, armored vehicles (like the Merkava MBT), but also on its compulsory military service system that keeps the majority of the population trained to defend its country. Israel has a unique military service in the western world, being compulsory for all those over 18 years of age, be they men or women. In the case of men, it lasts 32 months, while women remain under military discipline for 21 months, although those that are framed in combat units usually serve the same time as men. Military service has exceptions, such as Arabs who do not want to serve and ultra-Orthodox Jews. However, more and more Israeli Arabs serve in the armed forces, including in mixed units with Druze, Jews and Christians; the same goes for the ultra-orthodox, who are beginning to serve in units adapted to their religious needs. Citizens who complete military service remain in the reserve until they are 40 years old, although it is estimated that only a quarter of them do so actively.[10] The same goes for the ultra-orthodox, who are beginning to serve in units adapted to their religious needs.

Social cohesion

Israeli military service and, by extension, the Israeli Defense Forces are, therefore, the greatest factor of social cohesion in the country, above even religion. This is the second reason why the army influences Israel. The experience of a country protection service carried out by all generations creates great social cohesion. In the Israeli mindset, serving in the military, protecting your family and ensuring the survival of the state is one of the greatest aspirations in life. From the school, within the academic curriculum itself, the idea of patriotism and service to the nation is integrated. And right now, despite huge contrasts between the Jewish majority and minorities, it is also a tool for social integration for Arabs, Druze and Christians. Despite racism and general mistrust towards Arabs, if you serve in the Armed Forces, the reality changes completely: you are respected, you integrate more easily into social life, and your opportunities for work and study after the enlistment period have increased considerably. Mixed units, such as Unit 585 where Bedouins and Christian Arabs serve,[11] allow these minorities to continue to throw down barriers in Israeli society, although on many occasions they find rejection from their own communities.

Israelis residing abroad are also called to service, after which many permanently settle in the country. This enhances the sense of community even for Jews still in the Diaspora.

In short, the IDF creates a sense of duty and belonging to the homeland, whatever the origin, as well as a strong link with the armed forces (which is hardly seen in other western countries) and acceptance of the sacrifices that must be made in order to ensure the survival of the country.

The third and last reason, the most important one, and the one that summarizes the role that the Army has in society and in the country, is the reality that, as said above, the survival of the country depends on the Army. This is how the military occupation of territories beyond the borders established in 1948, the bombings in civilian areas, the elimination of individual objectives are justified by the population and the Government. After 3,000 years, and since 1948 perhaps more than ever, the Israeli people depend on weapons to create a protection zone around them, and after the persecution throughout the centuries culminating in the Holocaust and its return to the "Promised Land," neither the state nor the majority of the population are willing to yield in their security against countries or organizations that directly threaten the existence of Israel as a country. This is why despite the multiple truces and the will (political and real) to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, the country cannot afford to step back in terms of preparing its armed forces and lobbying.

Obviously, during the current Covid-19 pandemic, the Army is having a key role in the success of the country in fighting the virus. The current rate of vaccination (near 70 doses per 100 people) is boosted by the use of reserve medics from the Army, as well as the logistic experience and planning (among obviously many other factors). Also, they have provided thousands of contact tracers, and the construction of hundreds of vaccination posts, and dozens of quarantine facilities. Even could be arguable that the military training could play a role in coping with the harsh restrictions that were imposed in the country.

The State-Army-People trinity exemplifies the reality that Israel lives, where the Army has a fundamental (and difficult) role in society. It is difficult to foresee a change in reality in the near future, but without a doubt, the army will continue to have the leadership role that it has assumed, in different forms, for 3,000 years.

[1] Genesis 15:18 New International Version (NIV). 18: "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, 'To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi [a] of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates'."

[2] Great Israel matches to previously mentioned Bible passage Gen. 15: 18-21.

[3] Independent, JS (2019, May 16). This is why Palestinians wave keys during the 'Day of Catastrophe'. Retrieved March 23, 2020, from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/nakba-day-catastrophe-palestinians-israel-benjamin-netanyahu-gaza-west-bank-hamas-a8346156.html

[4] Ross Stewart (2004). Causes and Consequences of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. London: Evan Brothers, Ltd., 2004.

[5] Record of the Conversation Between the Führer and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on November 28, 1941, in Berlin, Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945, Series D, Vol. XIII, London , 1964, p. 881ff, in Walter Lacquer and Barry Rubin, The Israel-Arab Reader, (NY: Facts on File, 1984), pp. 79-84. Retrieved from https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-mufti-and-the-f-uuml-hrer#2."Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine. .... Germany would furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle .... Germany's objective [is] ... solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere .... In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. The Mufti thanked Hitler profusely. "

[6] United Nations General Assembly A / RES / 181 (II) of 29 November 1947.

[7] Tzahal is a Hebrew acronym used to refer to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

[8] Newsroom (8th. June 2009). Arming Up: The world's biggest military spenders by population. 03-20-2020, by The Economist Retrieved from: https://www.economist.com/news/2009/06/08/arming-up

[9] Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (nd). SIPRI Military Expenditure Database. Retrieved March 21, 2020, from https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex

[10] Gross, JA (2016, May 30). Just a quarter of all eligible reservists serve in the IDF. Retrieved March 22, 2020, from https://www.timesofisrael.com/just-a-quarter-of-all-eligible-reservists-serve-in-the-idf/

[AHRONHEIM, A. ( 2020, January 12). Arab Christians and Bedouins in the IDF: Meet the members of Unit 585. Retrieved March 19, 2020, from https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/The-sky-is-the-limit-in-the- IDFs-unique-Unit-585-613948

Several countries in the Americas are celebrating in 2021 their two-hundredth anniversary of a break with Spain that did not always mean a final independence.ca celebrate in 2021 their two centuries of a break with Spain that did not always mean a final independence.

Several American nations are commemorating this year the two centuries of their separation from Spain, recalling a process that took place in all the Spanish possessions in continental America within a few years of each other. In some cases, it was a process of successive independences, as happened with Guatemala, which later belonged to the Mexican Empire and then to a Central American republic, and Panama, which was part of Colombia until the 20th century. But even later, both countries experienced direct interference by the United States, in episodes that were very decisive for the entire region.

Panama Canal submission ceremony to the Panamanian authorities on December 31, 1999.

article / Angie Grijalva

During 2021, several American countries celebrate their independence from Spain; the largest and most festive of these is Mexico. In other nations, the date of 1821 is colored by later historical developments: Panama also commemorates every year the day in 1903 when it broke with Bogota, while in the case of Guatemala that independence did not immediately imply a republic of its own, since together with its neighboring nations in 1822 it was nominally dependent on Mexico and between 1823 and 1839 it was part of the United Provinces of Central America and the Federal Republic of Central America. Moreover, the regional hegemony of the United States called into question in later decades the full sovereignty of these countries: Guatemala suffered in 1954 the first coup d'état openly promoted by Washington in the Western Hemisphere, and Panama did not have absolute control over its entire territory until the United States handed over the canal in 1999.

Panama and its canal

The Panama Canal project was important for the United States because it would make it possible to easily connect its two coasts by sea and consolidate the global rise sought by Theodore Roosevelt's presidency, guided by the maxim that only the nation that controlled both oceans would be a truly international power. Given the refusal of Colombia, to which the province of Panama then belonged, to accept the conditions set by the United States to build the canal, resuming the work on the paralyzed French project , Washington was faced with two options: invade the isthmus or promote Panama's independence from Colombia[1]. The Republic of Panama declared its independence on November 3, 1903 and with it Roosevelt negotiated a very favorable agreement for the United States that gave it perpetual sovereignty over the canal and over a wide strip of land on either side of it. Washington thus gained control of Panama and extended its regional dominance.

After a decade of difficult work and a high issue of deaths among the labor force, which came from all over the Caribbean and Asia, due to dengue fever, malaria and yellow fever, in 1913 the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were finally connected and the canal was opened to the transit of ships.

Over time, U.S. sovereignty over a portion of the country and the military instructions installed there fueled a rejection movement in Panama that became especially virulent in the 1960's. The Carter Administration admitted to negotiating the cession of the canal in a 1977 agreement that incorporated the Panamanians in the management of inter-oceanic traffic and set the submission of all installations in 1999. The Carter Administration agreed to negotiate the cession of the canal in a 1977 agreement that incorporated the Panamanians in the management of inter-oceanic traffic and set the submission of all facilities in 1999. When this finally took place, the country experienced the occasion as a new independence celebration, saying goodbye to U.S. troops that only ten years earlier had been very active, invading Panama City and other areas to arrest President Manuel Noriega for drug trafficking.

Critical moment in Guatemala

The Panama Canal gave the United States an undoubted projection of power over its hemisphere. However, during the Cold War, Washington also found it necessary to resort to operations, in some cases direct, to overthrow governments it considered close to communism. This occurred with the overthrow of Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala in 1954.

The arrival of Árbenz to the presidency in 1951 constituted a threat to the United Fruit Company (UFCO) because of the agrarian reform he was promoting[2]. Although the advance of communist parties in Latin America was beginning to grow, the real threat in certain countries was the expropriation of land by US monopolies. It is estimated that by 1950, the UFCO owned at least 225,000 hectares of land in Guatemala, of which the agrarian reform was to expropriate 162,000 hectares in 1952. With political support from Washington, UFCO claimed that the compensation offered did not correspond to the true value of the land and branded the Árbenz government as communist even though this was not true.

In 1953, the newly inaugurated Eisenhower Administration established a plan to destabilize the government and stage a coup d'état against Árbenz. On the one hand, Secretary of State John F. Dulles sought the support of the Organization of American States, encouraging the condemnation of Guatemala for receiving a shipment of arms from the Soviet Union, which had been acquired due to the refusal of the United States to sell arms to the Central American country. On the other hand, the CIA launched the mission statement PBSUCCESS to guarantee the quartermaster of a faction of the Guatemalan Army ready to rebel against Árbenz. The movement was headed by Colonel Castillo Armas, who was in exile in Honduras and from there opened the invasion on June 18, 1954. When the capital was bombed, the bulk of the Army refused to respond, leaving Árbenz alone, who resigned in a few days.

Once in power, Castillo Armas returned the land expropriated from UFCO and brought new U.S. investors into the country. Dulles called this victory "the greatest triumph against communism in the last five years". The overthrow of Árbenz was seen by the United States as a model for further operations in Latin America. The Nobel award for Literature Mario Vargas Llosa has pointed out that this action against Árbenz could be seen as "the moment when Latin America was screwed", since for many it was the evidence that the normal development of democracy was not possible, and that pushed certain sectors to defend revolution as the only way to make their societies prosper.

[1] McCullough, D. (2001). The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914. Simon & Schuster.

[2] G. Rabe, S. (2017). Intervention in Guatemala, 1953-1954. In S. G. Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticommunism. The University of North Carolina Press.

A minimum agreement at the last moment avoids the chaos of a agreement Brexit, but further negotiations will have to be held over the next few years.

Fragment of Brexit mural [Pixabay].

ANALYSIS / Pablo Gurbindo

After the United Kingdom officially left the European Union on January 31, 2020 at midnight, with the entrance into force of the Withdrawalagreement , it seemed that the issue that has practically monopolized the discussion in Brussels in recent years had been settled. But nothing could be further from the truth. The "political Brexit" had been resolved, but the "economic Brexit" still remained to be resolved.

In order to avoid chaos, this agreement provided for a transition period of 11 months, until December 31, 2020. During this period the United Kingdom, despite being already outside the EU, had to continue to be subject to European legislation and the Court of Justice of the EU as before, but without having a voice and a vote in the EU. The goal of this transition was to give both parties time to reach an agreement to define the future relationship. All parties knew that 11 months would not be enough time. Only a new trade agreement takes years to negotiate, the agreement with Canada took 7 years, for example. For this, the transition period included a possible extension before June 30, but Johnson did not want to ask for it, and promised his citizens to have a trade agreement by January 1, 2021.

With the fear of a possible Brexit without agreement, and the serious consequences it would have for the economies and citizens of both parties, an agreement was finally reached on December 24, just one week before the end of the transition period.

This agreement entered into force on January 1, 2021 on a provisional basis, since there was not enough time for it to become C in one week. The question now is: what does this agreement consist of, what have been the sticking points, and what have been the first tangible consequences during these first months?

The agreement on Trade and Cooperation (ACC)

What needs to be made clear from the outset is that this is a minimum agreement . It is a hard Brexit. A agreement Brexit has been avoided which would have been catastrophic, but it is still a hard Brexit.

The PCA between the United Kingdom and the European Union comprises a free trade agreement , a close association on subject of public security and a general governance framework .

The most important points of the agreement are the following:

Trade in goods

The PCA is very ambitious in this sense, as it establishes free trade between the two parties without any tariff or quota subject any product. If there had been no agreement in this sense, their trade relationship would have been governed by the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), with its corresponding quotas and tariffs. However, this free trade has a catch. This absence of any tariff or quota subject is only for "British originating" products, and this is where the complexity lies.

The rules of origin are detailed in the PCA, and although as a general rule the agreement is generous in qualifying a product as "British", there are certain sectors where this certification will be more demanding. For example, for an electric vehicle produced in the UK and exported to the EU to avoid tariffs, at least 45% of its added value must be British or European and its battery must be entirely British or European. From now on, proving the origin of each shipment in certain sectors is going to become a bureaucratic hell that did not exist before December 31. And the re-export of unprocessed foreign products from British soil to Europe will now be subject to a double tariff: one on entrance to the United Kingdom and another on entrance to the Union.

However, even if there are no tariff or quota subject on products, the usual trade flow will not be maintained. For example, in the area of trade in agri-food products, the absence of an agreement in the United Kingdom's sanitary and phytosanitary regime means that from now on, trade in these products will require sanitary certificates that were not previously required. This increase in "red tape" may have important consequences for products that are more easily substitutable, as importers of these products will prefer to avoid this extra bureaucracy by switching from British suppliers to other European ones.

Financial Services

In the subject services, the agreement is rather poor, but the lack of agreement on financial services, a very important sector for the United Kingdom, which alone generates 21% of British services exports, stands out.

While the United Kingdom was part of the Union, its financial institutions could operate freely throughout the EU thanks to the "financial passport", since all Member States have agreed on similar regulatory and supervisory rules for the markets. But this no longer applies to the UK.

The British government unilaterally decided to maintain easy access to its markets for EU entities, but the EU has not reciprocated.

In the absence of agreements on financial subject , European rules and regulations concerning third country entities, as a general rule, simply facilitate the establishment of these entities in the Union in order to operate in its markets.

One of the EU's objectives with this lack of reciprocity may have been the desire to wrest part of its capital from the City of London, Europe's leading financial place .

Citizens

Most of this section was resolved with the Withdrawal agreement , which guaranteed for life the maintenance of acquired rightsresidency program, work...) for European citizens already on British soil, or British citizens on European soil.

The ACC has agreed to abolish the need to apply for visas bilaterally for tourist stays not exceeding 3 months. For these cases it will now be necessary to carry a passport, not just a national identity card. But for longer stays, residency program or work visas will be required.

As for the recognition of professional and university degrees and qualifications, despite the UK's interest in maintaining them automatically as they are now, the EU has not allowed it. This could mean, for example, that qualified professionals such as lawyers or nurses will find it more difficult to have their degree scroll recognized and be able to work.

data protection and security cooperation

The agreement will allow police and legal cooperation to continue, but not with the same intensity as before. The United Kingdom will no longer be part of the EU data instructions on these matters. Exchanges of information will only be made at the written request of a party, either by requesting information or by sending information on its own initiative.

British relations with Europol (European Police Office) or Eurojust (European Agency for Judicial Cooperation) will be maintained, but as an external partnership .

Participation in Union programs

The United Kingdom will continue to be part of some Community programs such as: Horizon, the main European scientific cooperation program; Euratom, through a cooperationagreement external to the ACC; ITER, an international program for the study of fusion energy; Copernicus, a program led by the European Space Agency for the development of autonomous and continuous Earth observation capacity; and SST (Space Surveillance and Tracking), a European program for tracking space objects to avoid their collision.

But on the other hand, the UK will not continue in other programs, most notably the important Erasmus student exchange program. Johnson has already announced the creation of a national student exchange program named after the British mathematician Alan Turing, who cracked the Enigma code during World War II.

Friction points in the negotiation

There have been certain points which, due to their complexity or symbolism, have been the main points of friction between the Union and the United Kingdom. They have even jeopardized the success of the negotiations. The three main sticking points for the negotiations have been: fisheries, the level-playing field and governance.

Fishing

The disproportionate importance that fishing has had on the negotiation is surprising, considering that it only represents 0.1% of the British GDP, and is not an essential sector for the EU either. Its importance lies in its symbolic value, and the importance given to it by Brexit supporters as an example of recovering lost sovereignty. It should also be borne in mind that it is one of the points on which the UK had the upper hand in the negotiations. British waters are home to some of Europe's main fishing grounds, which have been accounting for 15% of total European fisheries. Of these fishing grounds, 57% were taken by the EU-27 and the remaining 43% by British fishermen. This percentage greatly infuriated the British fishing sector, which has been one of the main sectors supporting Brexit.

The British intention was to negotiate annual access quotas to its waters, following Norway's example with the EU. But finally a 25% cut in catches has been agreed upon in a progressive manner, but maintaining access to British waters. This agreement will be in force for the next five and a half years, after which new negotiations will be necessary, which will then be on an annual basis. In exchange, the EU has kept the possibility of commercial retaliation in the event that European fishermen are denied access to British waters.

"Level-playing field"

The topic of unfair skill was one of the most worrying issues in Brussels. Given that from now on the British do not have to follow European legislation, there was concern that, just a few kilometers from the Union, a country of the size and weight of the United Kingdom would considerably reduce its labor, environmental, tax or public aid standards. This could result in many European companies deciding to relocate to the UK because of this reduction in standards.

The agreement establishes a monitoring and retaliation mechanism in cases of discrepancies if one of the parties feels aggrieved. If there is a dispute, depending on the case, it will be submitted to a panel of experts, or it will be submitted to arbitration. For the EU a system where tariff offsets would have been automatic and if not interpreted by the CJEU would have been preferable. But for the UK one of its main objectives in the negotiation was not to be under the jurisdiction of the CJEU in any form.

Governance

The governance design of the agreement is complex. It is chaired by the Joint association committee , which will ensure that the PCA is correctly applied and interpreted, and in which all issues that may arise will be discussed. This committee will be assisted by more than thirty specialized committees and technical groups.

If a dispute arises, it shall be submitted to this joint association committee . If a solution is not reached by mutual agreement , then an external arbitration will be held, the decision of which is binding. In case of non-compliance, the aggrieved party is authorized to retaliate.

This instrument allows the EU to cover its back against the risk of the UK breaching part of the agreement. This risk gained a lot of strength during the negotiations, when Johnson presented to the British Parliament the Internal Market Act, which aimed to avoid any internal customs subject in the UK. This bill would go against the "Irish safeguard" agreed by Johnson himself and the EU in the Withdrawalagreement , and would go against international law as a clear contravention of the principle of "pacta sunt servanda". In the end this law was not passed, but it created great tension between the EU and the UK, in the British civil service examination of Johnson and even among its own ranks by calling into question the international credibility of the country.

Consequences

During the first months of the ACC's entrance into force, several important consequences have already been observed.

The controversial withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Erasmus program has already been felt. According to British universities, applications for programs of study from European citizens have fallen by 40%. The pandemic has played a role in this significant reduction, but it should also be noted that university fees in the UK after the program's exit have increased fourfold.

In terms of financial services, the City of London has already lost its degree scroll as Europe's leading financial center to Amsterdam in the first few months of the year. Daily equity trading in Amsterdam in January totaled 9.2 billion euros, higher than the 8.6 billion euros managed by the City. The London average last year was EUR 17.5 billion, far higher than the second-ranked European place , Frankfurt, with an average of EUR 5.9 billion. Last year, Amsterdam's average trade figure was 2.6 billion euros, making it the sixth largest financial place in Europe. The EU's lack of reciprocity in financial services has been able to achieve its goal for the time being.

One of the most curious anecdotes demonstrating the changes brought about by Brexit during these first months was the viral video of the Dutch customs authorities confiscating ham sandwiches from transporters arriving by ferry from the United Kingdom to the Netherlands. With the entrance into force of the PCA, animal products are not allowed to be exported without the corresponding health certificates.

Despite the absence of tariffs and quotas, the increased bureaucracy was expected to affect exchange and it has. According to data from the UK Road Transport association , UK exports to the EU via the ports fell by 68% in January compared to the same month last year.

It seemed that the British fishing sectors could be among the main beneficiaries of the agreement, but after these first months British fishermen are not satisfied. New bureaucratic requirements are slowing down deliveries and some fishermen are complaining that their catches are going to waste because they cannot be delivered on time to certain European markets. According to Scottish fishing representatives, delays due to bureaucracy are causing a loss of one million pounds a day to the sector. It should be borne in mind that UK fish exports to the EU accounted for 67% of the total in 2019. Faced with complaints from the sector, the British government has already announced a financial aid of 23 million pounds.

Conclusion

The agreement reached is undoubtedly a better result than the no agreement, but it is an incomplete agreement , and further negotiations will be necessary. The future of the PCA will depend on the change of position of the United Kingdom, which during the negotiation has prioritized having regulatory autonomy and recovering its "lost sovereignty". The agreement is also fragile as it allows either party to terminate the negotiated relationship if 12 months' notice is given.

The European Union and the United Kingdom are doomed to understand each other. The Union will have to learn to live with a neighbor with a lot of power and influence, and the United Kingdom will have to learn to live in the sphere of influence of the 27.

But, when the time comes, the United Kingdom will always have the option of article 49 of the EU Treaty, which regulates the accession of new countries to the Union.