The European Union and other major western powers have for years failed to pay enough attention to the Global South, and as a result are struggling to understand the shifting world order, according to several experts and academics.
After long periods of both the United States and Europe focusing inward, the reaction of much of the rest of the world to the Russian invasion of Ukraine proved a sharp wake-up call for the West. The support that the EU and the US felt they would have had in forums such as the United Nations, to squeeze Russia on the international stage, was not there.
“I think the EU assumed that African nations would vote with it on Ukraine,” says Tanya Cox, director of Concord, an umbrella body of European NGOs working on sustainable development. “They didn’t vote for Russia either, but they were absolutely ambivalent and didn’t automatically stand behind the EU. I think the EU is struggling at the moment because it built its vision of a world order based on a rules-based order and the rules-based order is crumbling.”
China, the rival superpower, has been seen as backing Russia after the latter’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. India has continued to be a major buyer of cheap Russian oil, as Europe weaned itself off fuel coming from Russia.
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Other countries, like many African nations, took a “count-me-out approach” to the global political arm wrestle, according to Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow in US think tank Carnegie’s global order and institutions programme. “Within the West there is a little bit of shock to the extent countries wanted to sit on the fence on Ukraine,” he says.
Much of this was linked to a “growing disenchantment” among the Global South with the international institutions. There was a sense these bodies set up in the aftermath of the second World War were “made for the West, by the West”, Patrick says.
At the same time as the US and European countries seemed to be retreating over the last decade, China has increased its diplomatic presence, seeking to use its huge financial heft to spread its influence. Its Belt and Road Initiative saw the country invest billions into large infrastructure projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The plan has been viewed as an attempt to gain leverage over poor countries in the Global South, many of which are now heavily indebted to China.
[ A new global order: Rising China and Russia rewrite the international rulebookOpens in new window ]
The US and the EU seemed to be slow to grasp the extent to which China was gaining significant sway over others, Patrick says. “The West took its eye off the ball, particularly with regard to Africa ... and is now playing catch-up.”
The EU has since responded with a plan called the Global Gateway, which aims to funnel public and private investment into Africa.
André Sapir, a former senior European Commission adviser, said the EU had been taking too narrow a view of the Global South, which it sometimes just saw as a “provider of raw materials”.
Sapir, a professor at Université libre de Bruxelles who also works with Bruegel economic think tank, says Europe is still “not paying enough attention” to the developing world.
How the EU handled the roll-out of vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic was not something that many African nations would quickly forget, Cox said. “It was more than protectionist. The fact is that by putting European countries first and not worrying about any other countries, it created some very bad blood.”
The EU’s “shameful” failure to challenge Israel over its invasion of Gaza was seen as an example of western double standards by many countries, when compared to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Cox says.
[ Lack of action to stop attacks on Gaza is a moral injury to us allOpens in new window ]
The group of countries known as Brics is seen as one of the main vehicles through which the Global South is able to have influence on the international stage. The club was made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, then South Africa, and since the start of this year it includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The expanded Brics group triggered some “anxiety in the West”, which for now is “overblown,” according to Patrick. The band of quickly growing economies is “wildly dominated by China”, which often “steamrolls” the others if it needs to. At present it is more of an “oppositional force” that could try to block policy, but is less coherent in what it proposes, he says.
“The Brics countries are very successful in their own way ... They do not have to kowtow to the EU because they have their own power,” Cox says. “They are players on this chessboard that the EU is struggling to manoeuvre around and to know how exactly to manage.”
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