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Manuel Muñiz (1983) is a doctor from the University of Oxford and has been director of the Transatlantic Relations Program at Harvard University, as well as dean of IE. For a little over 100 days, he has been the Secretary of State of Spain for Globa l and is one of the experts on the committee created by the Government to direct the de-escalation process. He gives his first interview to a written medium since he has worked at the Palacio de Santa Cruz, the ministerial headquarters in the center of Madrid

Spain has presented a more vague de-escalation plan than countries such as France and Italy and there are autonomous communities, some governed by the PSOE, which label it 'confusing'. In the Ministry we have dedicated ourselves to studying the plans of all countries, starting by the Asians, who started the de-escalation earlier and, of course, the Europeans. They all take very similar steps. Behind the dates there are phases that we follow according to the criteria of the epidemiological experts. Any country depends on those indicators. In France [hours after the interview, the Senate rejected Macron's plan], where the most specific date has been presented, they acknowledge, like everyone else, that their calendar is subject to the evolution of the pandemic. According to a recent survey From the National Institute of Analytical Studies, 67.9% of the interviewees described the crisis management as 'disaster'. Don't you think that the government has lacked self-criticism? I think the criticism is very healthy, but it is insane if it occurs in the midst of managing a crisis of this magnitude. Later, it will undoubtedly be necessary to do it and think about how to improve the management of systemic risks, such as a pandemic or a large-scale cyber attack. Analyzing the management of the other countries, I do not share that the management in Spain has been disastrous. But there are countries in our environment that do not consider our numbers of contagion and deaths. If you ask an epidemiologist how an epidemic behaves in a certain area Geographical with respect to others it will tell you that this is one of the great mysteries. Studies of previous epidemics have not yet managed to clear up some unknowns. Why? Due to the number of factors. These can be climatological, geographic, cultural - in Spain there are more than 700,000 homes in which three generations live - of urban concentration, infrastructure, how the porosity of a country is and its tourist exposure. I don't want to say that everything has been done well but it is a crisis of great complexity, with many unknowns. I think that it is not necessary to compare with the other countries, but to see how each one manages its epidemiological curve. Spain is managing it, that yes at a very high cost. We are in the first wave, more may come, as happened with the badly called Spanish flu, and you have to prepare. In the case of the flu, the second was the hardest. Yes. So it is rash to make judgments. The time will come for self-criticism and severe criticism to respond to these crises.

More specifically, I would like to ask you about your Ministry. Among its successes are the repatriation and the sanitary corridor with China, but there are blots, such as the crisis with Turkey and the Coronabonos. The repatriation of more than 25,000 citizens has been carried out, the largest operation in our history. Venues of the Cervantes Institutes were also set up to welcome Spanish tourists who could not return and a platform for their accommodation. On the economic side, I do not consider this negotiation to be a failure, on the contrary, since we have defended the approach that the solution of the crisis passes through a European solution. A large reconstruction fund is now being negotiated that is non-repayable and unconditional. Regarding the Turkey issue, it was resolved very quickly. In addition, many more things have been done. Like what? There have been reports on the impact of the pandemic on the international order and Spain is making many contributions to the governance of global health. Strengthening of the WHO, the response of the European Union to health crises, the creation of a stress test for health systems and a unit like that of the EMU but at a global level have been proposed. Are you afraid that the tensions between partners in Brussels grow Euroscepticism in a country that has always been pro-European? This worries me since the beginning of the crisis. If the European Union did not give an adequate response, which I believe is giving it, it would be very difficult for a large part of the citizens to not feel it as a failure of the Union. That would hurt the European project. The coronavirus calls for a European response because it is an exogenous crisis, does not originate in the Union, and is symmetrical, because its shock will affect all countries sooner or later. At the moment, we already have a robust response from the European Central Bank and the reconstruction framework remains to be finalized. The US has injected much more money than Europe and it seems that it will come out before the economic crisis. That is speculative, I do not know that It depends on how the US manages the necessary sanitary part for the economic reactivation. What worries you the most about the consequences of the crisis? If this crisis, as happened in the previous one, enlarged the social fracture, it would reproduce an emptying of the center, an ascent of populism and, therefore, an institutional fracture Political scientists do not seem to agree on populism. Some believe that the crisis will make it grow and others that it will go into decline due to its management of the coronavirus. The Government must not allow the impact of the crisis to fall on already precarious groups. They must be protected, and that is being worked on. For me, economic recovery and the fight against disinformation are the keys to preventing the growth of populism. In the EU there is a registry of disinformation campaigns. More than 20% of those that have been produced since 2015 have to do with the Covid-19. Look at the concentration produced in just a few weeks. These campaigns include conspiracy theories about the origin of the disease, attacks against the management of governments, against the legitimacy of the European Union. They follow a pattern that is already known but has worsened, but the fight against hoaxes is also raising temptations in democratic governments to control information. In the United Kingdom, doctors have been sanctioned for criticizing the lack of sanitary resources, and in Spain, the CIS launched a trick question. Do you not consider it dangerous for the government to try to control the informational debate? I consider that the biggest problem in the management of disinformation is in the erosion and weakening of the traditional media, which have been the guardians of the rigor of public debate. I put the emphasis on the rise of platforms where information is shared without editorial rigor, checking and responsibility for content. What could be the solution to this problem? The solution is for these platforms to take responsibility for what is published as the traditional media do, because if they do not, they not only harm their business but also avoid the burden of rigor. We do not know how to sustain deliberative democracies without a truthful and resilient public debate. Here the fundamental piece is not the Government, but the ecosystem of information and opinion, and that is the one that must be protected. It is not the function of the Government, nor do I think it intends to be, to structure the country's public debate; that's a function of the media.

Economic recovery and the fight against disinformation are the keys to preventing the growth of populism

How to develop efficient economic diplomacy with closed borders and a collapsed economy? In two ways: the first with the aforementioned European dimension, which implies a vigorous reaction. The second has to do with solving the issue of mobility. We have studied cases from countries that have managed it well, their epidemiological curves have had problems with imported cases. Its borders have become hard, little porous. Korea has 14-day quarantines. This is a very important economic problem because it affects not only tourism but also company executives, seasonal workers, researchers, cargo crews or, among others, transporters ... We are working within the European framework to establish mechanisms for that mobility is not so severely restricted. Is the idea of ​​the immunological passport being considered? The WHO has already said that it is problematic because many things about immunity are unknown, and it also generates perverse incentives if privileges are granted to those who have antibodies. Another different question is if we recognized some PCR tests in destinosterceros or other ideas. Formulas are being sought so that mobility is as flexible as possible within the Union and that border severity is at the common border, not the one that delimits the Member States.

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