MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th April, 2020) Europe should use the unfolding coronavirus pandemic to consolidate the efforts of all member states and to reconsider capacity-planning strategies for vital commodities like medical supplies by creating a strategic stockpile for the future, Michele Emiliano, governor of the Italian Apulia region, told Sputnik.
"At this time, I believe that Europe and Western countries paid a very harsh, very costly price. Therefore, I believe that, together with the great nations of the world, Europe must build a strategic reserve, strategic stocks that will ensure an overall control in times of emergency for natural disasters and other possible global emergencies," Michele Emiliano said.
This has to be done in collaboration with national governments, which may be willing to subsidize extra capacity by making purchases for their national stockpiles to improve common resilience in the future.
Italy, alongside the majority of European countries ,has been on a nationwide lockdown and is still struggling to curb the spread of COVID-19. Despite its best efforts, the country has one of the highest death tolls in the world, which as of Friday has exceeded 22,000.
"It is self evident that European countries, certainly Italy, were taken by surprise by the coronavirus epidemic and, above all, it is clear that they had no plans to fight the pandemic," the governor noted.
Italy's former minister of health, Girolamo Sirchia, told Sputnik in March that one of the biggest obstacles in tackling the spread of the virus in early stages was a lack of capacity to manufacture many products for which there was sudden urgent need � everything from critical care ventilators, face masks, and personal protective equipment.
The current pandemic-related shortages have fueled warnings from European politicians that the dependency on a third countries on production and supply of critical goods threatens sovereignty of any state.
"There is a risk that, due to the trivial shortages of objects which, incidentally, have a negligible value, we risk losing control of sovereignty over our own territory, our own country, our own people. Something that, evidently, no one can afford," Michele Emiliano stated.
Claudio D'Amico, a member of the Italian Lega Party, told Sputnik his political party long ago pointed at a need to safeguard local industries against foreign competition including those that produce medical products.
"To safeguard our sovereignty sometimes we need apply trade protectionism through tariffs and other measures as means of economic defense," he said.
He also added that Italy was producing some quantity of medical supplies but had a zero national stockpile for emergencies like the latest COVID-19 crisis.
While some are calling to stock up on national reserves of critical products, others raised critical questions, such as why their countries do not have the capacity to manufacture critical products, and call to bring back manufacturing.
"Re-nationalization of production and orders is the Motto. To prefer domestic companies and to subsidize our industry on our own is a MUST - no matter if EU-laws prohibit that. This will be a focus not only for me but for my whole party," Roman Haider, an EU lawmaker from the Freedom Party of Austria, told Sputnik.
Alexander Neu, a Bundestag member from Die Linke, echoed his Austrian colleague in a comment to Sputnik stressing that he was "definitely against outsourcing system-relevant production of products like Medical products, weapons or energy and food."
Jorg Meuthen, a member of the European parliament from AfD and Federal spokesman for the party, told Sputnik that the current crisis shows that economic globalization has its downsides and that free trade cannot help solve strategic production problems.
"I am a strong proponent of free trade, but nevertheless the corona crisis shows one thing very clearly, namely the dark side of the dangerous dependencies of global supply chains. There are obvious disadvantages of a complete international outsourcing of essential products like medical products. That is what we begin to understand in this time and what most of us have not realized before. This is a lesson we have to learn from the Covid19-crisis, because corona will not be the last pandemic, I am sure of that," he said.
The current pandemic is not the only critical event of the last decades. There have been several of that scale, including the 2008 financial crisis, some natural catastrophes in Asia such as the 2011 earthquake in Japan or flooding in Thailand, as well as economic shocks such as the latest is the US-China trade war.
While some political parties and even states are strongly against outsourcing strategic aspects of production, in many cases the economy dictates the terms.
Efficiency and good performance indicators motivate producers to scale down expenses, sizing their operations with minimal surplus capacity. For example, relocation of companies out of China to the United States has been slow, despite the trade war and US President Donald Trump's protectionist measures.
The number of coronavirus cases registered globally reached 2,134,465, including 540,656 recoveries and 142,148 deaths, according to the statistics collected by Johns Hopkins University.
