He President of the United States, Joe Bidenhas arrived this Wednesday at the second summit for democracy organized in his mandate with a optimistic message which he already launched in his State of the Union address. “Today we can proudly say that the world’s democracies are getting strongernot weakening, while autocracies weaken, they do not get stronger & rdquor ;, he said. The moment in which this virtual encounter takes place offers a rather more complicated. And underline the weaknesses of a conclave that, with voluntary commitments and without any mechanism to ensure its compliance or the maintenance of democratic standards in the participating countries, is viewed with abundant skepticism and even as inconsequential.
One of the most obvious signs of the storms on this summit, and its paradoxes, is the high tension between two unwavering allies such as the United States and Israel. On Tuesday, Biden It showed itself “very worried & rdquor; for judicial reform proposed by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and went so far as to say that “they cannot continue on that path”, a message to which the Israeli prime minister has replied, rejecting “pressure even from the best of friends”. In any case, the White House has maintained the invitation to Netanyahu to participate in the summit, in which he intervened on Tuesday with a video in which he defended that Israel continues to be a “robust democracy” in the middle of “a very intense public debate”. “Democracy means the will of the people expressed by the majority, and it also means the protection of civil rights, individual rights & rdquor ;, she added.
They are not the only clouds over Biden’s optimistic message. In Mexico legislative reforms are advancing will undermine election supervisionin another ally like India It has been opposition leader expelled from Parliament and Brazil At the beginning of the year, it experienced an insurrection similar to the one that the US suffered with the assault on the Capitol.
The usefulness of the summit itself, which Biden offered as one of his campaign promises when he was a candidate, is also called into question. This time Washington has tried to curb the criticism that the first of 2021 received adding to the organization to four countries: South Korea, Costa Rica, the Netherlands and Zambia, that also they hold events. In this edition, which started on Tuesday and ends on Thursday, participating 120 countries but there is also absencesas the Hungary and Türkiyetwo NATO members who are not invited, or that of Pakistanwhich as in the first has declined to attendin a gesture widely interpreted as a try not to upset china.
commitments
For the Biden Administration, in any case, the summit serves to try to strengthen alliances and project commitment with democratic advances. And the president has announced that he plans allocate in the next two years 690 million dollars to the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal that he launched at the first summit, then announcing just over 400 million dollars. These funds would go, as explained by the White House, to support media free and independent fight corruptionto Democratic reformers and human rightsto advances in technology support democracy now free and fair elections.
In the technological part, it has also been announced a agreement with 10 countries to limit the use of surveillance technology, a pact that comes days after Biden signed an executive order in the US that prohibits US agencies from using “spyware & rdquor; that have been used to monitor human rights activists, journalists and dissidents.
Some of the critical voices of the meeting, however, underscore a inconsistent Washington politics when speaking, for example, of human rights. And these criticisms are based on cases such as that of Saudi Arabia. Biden promised to make it a “pariah state & rdquor; after the murder of Jamal Kashoggi but the promise has gone with the wind.
Ukraine
The war launched by Russia with the invasion of Ukraine has been another of the axes of the summit. In his speech this Wednesday, in the same session as Biden, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has renewed his call to receive more weapons. And she’s back too reject the voices that suggest a negotiated exit with Vladimir Putin for the conflict. “Must abandon the delusion that compromising with evil can give you some of the freedom& rdquor ;, he said. “The enemies of democracy must lose & rdquor ;.
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