The resumption of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, postponed in January 2021 and again earlier this year due to the pandemic, was big. Climate crisis, economy, sustainability, inclusion, revolution in the labor market — it was all on the agenda.
The Ukrainian War, however, overshadowed not only the debates but also the moods and forecasts of the event, which ended up having less quorum this year (many guests with Covid were unable to attend, and the busy schedule in May, compared to January, was another mishap).
Unlike what happened in other crises, however, Davos abdicated its vocation as a space to debate the solution of global crises and problems and took up the defense of the Ukrainian government, with no room for mediation.
It started with President Volodymyr Zelensky, in Kiev, making the first speech in the noble space of the event by video and comparing the invasion of his country with the triggers of the First and Second World Wars; ended with Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko, at the center of the summit’s final press conference, calling for action against a “no rules” war.
His appeals were reinforced by Ukrainian parliamentarians, journalists and activists, treated like stars by the organization. And there was no shortage of those who echoed them.
“A nuclear power is behaving as if it has the right to redraw borders. [Vladimir] Putin wants a return to a world where force determines what is right,” German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz said in his speech on Thursday.
“It’s not just Ukraine’s existence as a state that is at stake. The entire system of international cooperation created after two devastating world wars to prevent that from ever happening again is at stake.”
Earlier, on Tuesday, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, stressed that the European Union, for the first time in history, was providing military and economic aid to a country (which, by the way, is not part of the bloc) .
The slightest dissonance in the more than 450 panels came from the almost centenary Henry Kissinger, a former US Secretary of State who has lived through many wars and participated in the debate on the big screen, warning that the negotiation between the parties is urgent and should include the cession of territory by Kiev. He supported the Ukrainians, but suggested that other governments reduce pressure on Moscow.
Among the 107 countries somehow represented at the event, Russia, once an active participant, was not even listed. The Russian House, always one of the biggest attractions on Davos’s main avenue, the Promenade, has disappeared, and a Russian War Crimes House has been opened in its place.
China, an ally of Russia, was little present: the strict anti-pandemic controls in Beijing and Shanghai prevented a larger participation, as in other years.
The debates on the economy were also crossed by the war. Because Russia is one of the main exporters of oil and gas in the world, because it is one of the main producers of fertilizers and because the conflict between the two countries, great producers of grains, energy and food, has made these items sharply expensive since the beginning of the war. , on the 24th of February.
The highs boosted inflation around the world, even in countries that are unaware of the phenomenon, such as Switzerland, and economists and experts at the Forum warned of the real risk of lack of food in poor nations and energy in rich ones.
Sovereign debts rose, supply chains were disrupted, and global trade retracted. In short, globalization has stalled, and the planet is on the brink of a new crisis due to war, still barely emerging from the chaos of the pandemic.
Correct or not, this is not the view that prevails in Latin America, Asia and Africa. And even in the United States the impact is scaled more nuancedly.
But health restrictions and timing reduced these delegations, as noted by participants with whom the Sheet talked, making an event that in recent years had been diversifying its guests essentially European. Therefore, neighbor to the war.
And, as Scholz pointed out, there is fear that the entire system designed after 1945 will collapse, which could further impact the region’s weight in the world, giving rise to a redesign of the international landscape and, as Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy) observed, a reorganization of economic relations between countries. It’s not little.
