In the Granada summit this Thursday and Friday, Spain is going to defend before the heads of State or Government that we must protect ourselves and reindustrialize, but also keep the EU open to the world. Blow and sip at the same time. Generate more and more trade agreements and sign supply contracts with producing countries, but at the same time limit the access of foreign hands to fundamental companies, among other defensive measures.

The Government of Pedro Sanchez and that of the French president Emmanuel Macron. The first, since he was acting president of the EU Council in the first half of last year, calls for reducing the EU’s dependencies both in defense and in energy, technology or industry. At the Versailles summit in 2022 there was talk of strategic autonomy. Year and a half laterit is up to Spain to organize the rotating summit. And Moncloa chooses to mitigate French protectionist impulses. He has added the word “open” to the concept of “strategic autonomy.”

According to Moncloa, what Sánchez is going to propose at 27 these days in Granada It is a strategic autonomy “very, very open”, an open-minded proposal. The Government recognizes the need to develop internal capabilities, as proposed by France, but the Spanish version suggests doing it in a particularly surgical and intelligent way. That this effort to develop internal industrial capabilities be completed with an expansion of commercial relations abroad. A commitment to renewed multilateral architecture and ecological transition, the same sources insist. They do not see these international trade agreements as an obstacle, but as a way to strengthen the autonomy of the EU.

The clearest example of this debate is the attempted unfinished trade agreement with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay (Mercosur). First it didn’t come out because the ultra Jaír Bolsonaro was in the Brazilian Government, and now it hasn’t come together, especially because of Paris’s reluctance. His argument is that either intensive Brazilian farmers and ranchers are asked to comply with the same environmental and phytosanitary rules as Europeans, or they are penalized for doing so. Brasilia refuses: friends do not impose harsh conditions on each other. Spain prefers to see the glass half full, and is pushing together with the Commission for this agreement to be closed before the end of the year. In the current geopolitical context, we must look for “Eurocompatible zones” with which to guarantee supplies, in the words of Josep Borrell, head of European diplomacy, and not obsess over small details. The world is changing and Latin America is a priority.

Then there is China. The Asian giant is going through one of its worst economic moments. Youth unemployment is at an unprecedented 20%. Things are not going well. Everything pushes it to even increase its proverbial state protectionism: subsidize its strategic companies, whatever the cost. But in Brussels the red card has already been lifted. An investigation has been launched into unfair practices for its electric cars, which flood the market because they cost much less. The same thing happens with green technologies. There is a lot of concern about the United States and its Inflation Reduction Plan, which is a euphemism for a plan that will shower billions on green technology companies that produce in the country. Here Spain, France and the rest of the EU are on the same page.

Resilience by 2030

The base working document for this summit will be Resilience 2030, a text produced under the direction of the National Foresight and Strategy Office of Moncloa, in collaboration with more than 250 experts and 80 ministries of the 27 member states, the European Commission and the Council of the EU. 80 pages of unusual detail specifying the keys to reducing dependencies on the EU and isolating oneself from the ups and downs of value chains. There is talk, for example, about how algae cultivation should be promoted to reduce imports of animal protein from China, or what supply of rare earths should be guaranteed with emergency trade agreements, so that the green industry is not slowed down. .

But not everyone agrees with the letter of what was written in Resilience 2030. We must see how the recommendations are finally condensed in the final declaration of the summit, which diplomats are fighting in Brussels.

Spain wants a clear roadmap for the EU enlargement process to also emerge from the Granada summit. Next year there are European elections, and everything will change a lot in the next five years of the legislature. The spanish government defends changing the current voting system, which favors countries’ vetoes on key foreign policy and security issues. Better another with a qualified majority (at least as many countries, at least as many population). Hungary has been a problem when approving, for example, sanctions against Russia. Or Italy: the extreme right Meloni continues to slow down the reform of the Migration and Asylum Pact, due to internal differences in reading on how to treat migrant minors or how to respond to crises such as the wave of refugees in Lampedusa. Voting reform makes sense especially if the entry of many more countries in the future is accepted: Moldova, the Balkan countries or Ukraine.

EU leaders will debate all these issues on Friday in a plenary session that has the standard format of all informal European summits. But Granada has an addition that makes it a particularly relevant event, almost a supersummit. On Thursday, 59 delegations from 45 countries of the European Political Community will meet, which are all of the EU, plus the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Serbia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, among others, although the latter two have canceled their attendance at last minute. Almost the entire Old Continent. There they are going to talk without restrictions, off camera, in a kind of forum they call clusters: Some will discuss how to face the risks of Artificial Intelligence; in another, on how to promote the ecological transition. Pedro Sánchez will attend the one that deals with the challenges of multilateralism and geostrategy (Ukraine, tensions in the Caucasus, UN reform). In the rest, he will be replaced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, as this newspaper has learned. When it ends, they hope in Moncloa, the foundations for the Europe of the future will have been laid. At the very least, some historical photos will have been published with fifty world leaders in the Alhambra in Granada.