research paper on effects of globalization

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Research Article

Globalization and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence on the Role of Complementarities

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Johor, Malaysia, Department of Management, Mobarakeh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

Affiliation Applied Statistics Department, Economics and Administration Faculty, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

• Parisa Samimi, 
• Hashem Salarzadeh Jenatabadi

• Published: April 10, 2014
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087824
• Reader Comments

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of economic globalization on economic growth in OIC countries. Furthermore, the study examined the effect of complementary policies on the growth effect of globalization. It also investigated whether the growth effect of globalization depends on the income level of countries. Utilizing the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator within the framework of a dynamic panel data approach, we provide evidence which suggests that economic globalization has statistically significant impact on economic growth in OIC countries. The results indicate that this positive effect is increased in the countries with better-educated workers and well-developed financial systems. Our finding shows that the effect of economic globalization also depends on the country’s level of income. High and middle-income countries benefit from globalization whereas low-income countries do not gain from it. In fact, the countries should receive the appropriate income level to be benefited from globalization. Economic globalization not only directly promotes growth but also indirectly does so via complementary reforms.

Citation: Samimi P, Jenatabadi HS (2014) Globalization and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence on the Role of Complementarities. PLoS ONE 9(4): e87824. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087824

Editor: Rodrigo Huerta-Quintanilla, Cinvestav-Merida, Mexico

Received: November 5, 2013; Accepted: January 2, 2014; Published: April 10, 2014

Copyright: © 2014 Samimi, Jenatabadi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The study is supported by the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia, Malaysian International Scholarship (MIS). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Globalization, as a complicated process, is not a new phenomenon and our world has experienced its effects on different aspects of lives such as economical, social, environmental and political from many years ago [1] – [4] . Economic globalization includes flows of goods and services across borders, international capital flows, reduction in tariffs and trade barriers, immigration, and the spread of technology, and knowledge beyond borders. It is source of much debate and conflict like any source of great power.

The broad effects of globalization on different aspects of life grab a great deal of attention over the past three decades. As countries, especially developing countries are speeding up their openness in recent years the concern about globalization and its different effects on economic growth, poverty, inequality, environment and cultural dominance are increased. As a significant subset of the developing world, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries are also faced by opportunities and costs of globalization. Figure 1 shows the upward trend of economic globalization among different income group of OIC countries.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087824.g001

Although OICs are rich in natural resources, these resources were not being used efficiently. It seems that finding new ways to use the OICs economic capacity more efficiently are important and necessary for them to improve their economic situation in the world. Among the areas where globalization is thought, the link between economic growth and globalization has been become focus of attention by many researchers. Improving economic growth is the aim of policy makers as it shows the success of nations. Due to the increasing trend of globalization, finding the effect of globalization on economic growth is prominent.

The net effect of globalization on economic growth remains puzzling since previous empirical analysis did not support the existent of a systematic positive or negative impact of globalization on growth. Most of these studies suffer from econometrics shortcoming, narrow definition of globalization and small number of countries. The effect of economic globalization on the economic growth in OICs is also ambiguous. Existing empirical studies have not indicated the positive or negative impact of globalization in OICs. The relationship between economic globalization and economic growth is important especially for economic policies.

Recently, researchers have claimed that the growth effects of globalization depend on the economic structure of the countries during the process of globalization. The impact of globalization on economic growth of countries also could be changed by the set of complementary policies such as improvement in human capital and financial system. In fact, globalization by itself does not increase or decrease economic growth. The effect of complementary policies is very important as it helps countries to be successful in globalization process.

In this paper, we examine the relationship between economic globalization and growth in panel of selected OIC countries over the period 1980–2008. Furthermore, we would explore whether the growth effects of economic globalization depend on the set of complementary policies and income level of OIC countries.

The paper is organized as follows. The next section consists of a review of relevant studies on the impact of globalization on growth. Afterward the model specification is described. It is followed by the methodology of this study as well as the data sets that are utilized in the estimation of the model and the empirical strategy. Then, the econometric results are reported and discussed. The last section summarizes and concludes the paper with important issues on policy implications.

Literature Review

The relationship between globalization and growth is a heated and highly debated topic on the growth and development literature. Yet, this issue is far from being resolved. Theoretical growth studies report at best a contradictory and inconclusive discussion on the relationship between globalization and growth. Some of the studies found positive the effect of globalization on growth through effective allocation of domestic resources, diffusion of technology, improvement in factor productivity and augmentation of capital [5] , [6] . In contrast, others argued that globalization has harmful effect on growth in countries with weak institutions and political instability and in countries, which specialized in ineffective activities in the process of globalization [5] , [7] , [8] .

Given the conflicting theoretical views, many studies have been empirically examined the impact of the globalization on economic growth in developed and developing countries. Generally, the literature on the globalization-economic growth nexus provides at least three schools of thought. First, many studies support the idea that globalization accentuates economic growth [9] – [19] . Pioneering early studies include Dollar [9] , Sachs et al. [15] and Edwards [11] , who examined the impact of trade openness by using different index on economic growth. The findings of these studies implied that openness is associated with more rapid growth.

In 2006, Dreher introduced a new comprehensive index of globalization, KOF, to examine the impact of globalization on growth in an unbalanced dynamic panel of 123 countries between 1970 and 2000. The overall result showed that globalization promotes economic growth. The economic and social dimensions have positive impact on growth whereas political dimension has no effect on growth. The robustness of the results of Dreher [19] is approved by Rao and Vadlamannati [20] which use KOF and examine its impact on growth rate of 21 African countries during 1970–2005. The positive effect of globalization on economic growth is also confirmed by the extreme bounds analysis. The result indicated that the positive effect of globalization on growth is larger than the effect of investment on growth.

The second school of thought, which supported by some scholars such as Alesina et al. [21] , Rodrik [22] and Rodriguez and Rodrik [23] , has been more reserve in supporting the globalization-led growth nexus. Rodriguez and Rodrik [23] challenged the robustness of Dollar (1992), Sachs, Warner et al. (1995) and Edwards [11] studies. They believed that weak evidence support the idea of positive relationship between openness and growth. They mentioned the lack of control for some prominent growth indicators as well as using incomprehensive trade openness index as shortcomings of these works. Warner [24] refuted the results of Rodriguez and Rodrik (2000). He mentioned that Rodriguez and Rodrik (2000) used an uncommon index to measure trade restriction (tariffs revenues divided by imports). Warner (2003) explained that they ignored all other barriers on trade and suggested using only the tariffs and quotas of textbook trade policy to measure trade restriction in countries.

Krugman [25] strongly disagreed with the argument that international financial integration is a major engine of economic development. This is because capital is not an important factor to increase economic development and the large flows of capital from rich to poor countries have never occurred. Therefore, developing countries are unlikely to increase economic growth through financial openness. Levine [26] was more optimistic about the impact of financial liberalization than Krugman. He concluded, based on theory and empirical evidences, that the domestic financial system has a prominent effect on economic growth through boosting total factor productivity. The factors that improve the functioning of domestic financial markets and banks like financial integration can stimulate improvements in resource allocation and boost economic growth.

The third school of thoughts covers the studies that found nonlinear relationship between globalization and growth with emphasis on the effect of complementary policies. Borensztein, De Gregorio et al. (1998) investigated the impact of FDI on economic growth in a cross-country framework by developing a model of endogenous growth to examine the role of FDI in the economic growth in developing countries. They found that FDI, which is measured by the fraction of products produced by foreign firms in the total number of products, reduces the costs of introducing new varieties of capital goods, thus increasing the rate at which new capital goods are introduced. The results showed a strong complementary effect between stock of human capital and FDI to enhance economic growth. They interpreted this finding with the observation that the advanced technology, brought by FDI, increases the growth rate of host economy when the country has sufficient level of human capital. In this situation, the FDI is more productive than domestic investment.

Calderón and Poggio [27] examined the structural factors that may have impact on growth effect of trade openness. The growth benefits of rising trade openness are conditional on the level of progress in structural areas including education, innovation, infrastructure, institutions, the regulatory framework, and financial development. Indeed, they found that the lack of progress in these areas could restrict the potential benefits of trade openness. Chang et al. [28] found that the growth effects of openness may be significantly improved when the investment in human capital is stronger, financial markets are deeper, price inflation is lower, and public infrastructure is more readily available. Gu and Dong [29] emphasized that the harmful or useful growth effect of financial globalization heavily depends on the level of financial development of economies. In fact, if financial openness happens without any improvement in the financial system of countries, growth will replace by volatility.

However, the review of the empirical literature indicates that the impact of the economic globalization on economic growth is influenced by sample, econometric techniques, period specifications, observed and unobserved country-specific effects. Most of the literature in the field of globalization, concentrates on the effect of trade or foreign capital volume (de facto indices) on economic growth. The problem is that de facto indices do not proportionally capture trade and financial globalization policies. The rate of protections and tariff need to be accounted since they are policy based variables, capturing the severity of trade restrictions in a country. Therefore, globalization index should contain trade and capital restrictions as well as trade and capital volume. Thus, this paper avoids this problem by using a comprehensive index which called KOF [30] . The economic dimension of this index captures the volume and restriction of trade and capital flow of countries.

Despite the numerous studies, the effect of economic globalization on economic growth in OIC is still scarce. The results of recent studies on the effect of globalization in OICs are not significant, as they have not examined the impact of globalization by empirical model such as Zeinelabdin [31] and Dabour [32] . Those that used empirical model, investigated the effect of globalization for one country such as Ates [33] and Oyvat [34] , or did it for some OIC members in different groups such as East Asia by Guillaumin [35] or as group of developing countries by Haddad et al. [36] and Warner [24] . Therefore, the aim of this study is filling the gap in research devoted solely to investigate the effects of economic globalization on growth in selected OICs. In addition, the study will consider the impact of complimentary polices on the growth effects of globalization in selected OIC countries.

Model Specification

Methodology and Data

This paper applies the generalized method of moments (GMM) panel estimator first suggested by Anderson and Hsiao [38] and later developed further by Arellano and Bond [39] . This flexible method requires only weak assumption that makes it one of the most widely used econometric techniques especially in growth studies. The dynamic GMM procedure is as follow: first, to eliminate the individual effect form dynamic growth model, the method takes differences. Then, it instruments the right hand side variables by using their lagged values. The last step is to eliminate the inconsistency arising from the endogeneity of the explanatory variables.

The consistency of the GMM estimator depends on two specification tests. The first is a Sargan test of over-identifying restrictions, which tests the overall validity of the instruments. Failure to reject the null hypothesis gives support to the model. The second test examines the null hypothesis that the error term is not serially correlated.

The GMM can be applied in one- or two-step variants. The one-step estimators use weighting matrices that are independent of estimated parameters, whereas the two-step GMM estimator uses the so-called optimal weighting matrices in which the moment conditions are weighted by a consistent estimate of their covariance matrix. However, the use of the two-step estimator in small samples, as in our study, has problem derived from proliferation of instruments. Furthermore, the estimated standard errors of the two-step GMM estimator tend to be small. Consequently, this paper employs the one-step GMM estimator.

In the specification, year dummies are used as instrument variable because other regressors are not strictly exogenous. The maximum lags length of independent variable which used as instrument is 2 to select the optimal lag, the AR(1) and AR(2) statistics are employed. There is convincing evidence that too many moment conditions introduce bias while increasing efficiency. It is, therefore, suggested that a subset of these moment conditions can be used to take advantage of the trade-off between the reduction in bias and the loss in efficiency. We restrict the moment conditions to a maximum of two lags on the dependent variable.

Data and Empirical Strategy

We estimated Eq. (1) using the GMM estimator based on a panel of 33 OIC countries. Table S1 in File S1 lists the countries and their income groups in the sample. The choice of countries selected for this study is primarily dictated by availability of reliable data over the sample period among all OIC countries. The panel covers the period 1980–2008 and is unbalanced. Following [40] , we use annual data in order to maximize sample size and to identify the parameters of interest more precisely. In fact, averaging out data removes useful variation from the data, which could help to identify the parameters of interest with more precision.

The dependent variable in our sample is logged per capita real GDP, using the purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates and is obtained from the Penn World Table (PWT 7.0). The economic dimension of KOF index is derived from Dreher et al. [41] . We use some other variables, along with economic globalization to control other factors influenced economic growth. Table S2 in File S2 shows the variables, their proxies and source that they obtain.

We relied on the three main approaches to capture the effects of economic globalization on economic growth in OIC countries. The first one is the baseline specification (Eq. (1)) which estimates the effect of economic globalization on economic growth.

The second approach is to examine whether the effect of globalization on growth depends on the complementary policies in the form of level of human capital and financial development. To test, the interactions of economic globalization and financial development (KOF*FD) and economic globalization and human capital (KOF*HCS) are included as additional explanatory variables, apart from the standard variables used in the growth equation. The KOF, HCS and FD are included in the model individually as well for two reasons. First, the significance of the interaction term may be the result of the omission of these variables by themselves. Thus, in that way, it can be tested jointly whether these variables affect growth by themselves or through the interaction term. Second, to ensure that the interaction term did not proxy for KOF, HCS or FD, these variables were included in the regression independently.

In the third approach, in order to study the role of income level of countries on the growth effect of globalization, the countries are split based on income level. Accordingly, countries were classified into three groups: high-income countries (3), middle-income (21) and low-income (9) countries. Next, dummy variables were created for high-income (Dum 3), middle-income (Dum 2) and low-income (Dum 1) groups. Then interaction terms were created for dummy variables and KOF. These interactions will be added to the baseline specification.

Findings and Discussion

This section presents the empirical results of three approaches, based on the GMM -dynamic panel data; in Tables 1 – 3 . Table 1 presents a preliminary analysis on the effects of economic globalization on growth. Table 2 displays coefficient estimates obtained from the baseline specification, which used added two interaction terms of economic globalization and financial development and economic globalization and human capital. Table 3 reports the coefficients estimate from a specification that uses dummies to capture the impact of income level of OIC countries on the growth effect of globalization.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087824.t001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087824.t002

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087824.t003

The results in Table 1 indicate that economic globalization has positive impact on growth and the coefficient is significant at 1 percent level. The positive effect is consistent with the bulk of the existing empirical literature that support beneficial effect of globalization on economic growth [9] , [11] , [13] , [19] , [42] , [43] .

According to the theoretical literature, globalization enhances economic growth by allocating resources more efficiently as OIC countries that can be specialized in activities with comparative advantages. By increasing the size of markets through globalization, these countries can be benefited from economic of scale, lower cost of research and knowledge spillovers. It also augments capital in OICs as they provide a higher return to capital. It has raised productivity and innovation, supported the spread of knowledge and new technologies as the important factors in the process of development. The results also indicate that growth is enhanced by lower level of government expenditure, lower level of inflation, higher level of human capital, deeper financial development, more domestic investment and better institutions.

Table 2 represents that the coefficients on the interaction between the KOF, HCS and FD are statistically significant at 1% level and with the positive sign. The findings indicate that economic globalization not only directly promotes growth but also indirectly does via complementary reforms. On the other hand, the positive effect of economic globalization can be significantly enhanced if some complementary reforms in terms of human capital and financial development are undertaken.

In fact, the implementation of new technologies transferred from advanced economies requires skilled workers. The results of this study confirm the importance of increasing educated workers as a complementary policy in progressing globalization. However, countries with higher level of human capital can be better and faster to imitate and implement the transferred technologies. Besides, the financial openness brings along the knowledge and managerial for implementing the new technology. It can be helpful in improving the level of human capital in host countries. Moreover, the strong and well-functioned financial systems can lead the flow of foreign capital to the productive and compatible sectors in developing countries. Overall, with higher level of human capital and stronger financial systems, the globalized countries benefit from the growth effect of globalization. The obtained results supported by previous studies in relative to financial and trade globalization such as [5] , [27] , [44] , [45] .

Table (3 ) shows that the estimated coefficients on KOF*dum3 and KOF*dum2 are statistically significant at the 5% level with positive sign. The KOF*dum1 is statistically significant with negative sign. It means that increase in economic globalization in high and middle-income countries boost economic growth but this effect is diverse for low-income countries. The reason might be related to economic structure of these countries that are not received to the initial condition necessary to be benefited from globalization. In fact, countries should be received to the appropriate income level to be benefited by globalization.

The diagnostic tests in tables 1 – 3 show that the estimated equation is free from simultaneity bias and second-order correlation. The results of Sargan test accept the null hypothesis that supports the validity of the instrument use in dynamic GMM.

Conclusions and Implications

Numerous researchers have investigated the impact of economic globalization on economic growth. Unfortunately, theoretical and the empirical literature have produced conflicting conclusions that need more investigation. The current study shed light on the growth effect of globalization by using a comprehensive index for globalization and applying a robust econometrics technique. Specifically, this paper assesses whether the growth effects of globalization depend on the complementary polices as well as income level of OIC countries.

Using a panel data of OIC countries over the 1980–2008 period, we draw three important conclusions from the empirical analysis. First, the coefficient measuring the effect of the economic globalization on growth was positive and significant, indicating that economic globalization affects economic growth of OIC countries in a positive way. Second, the positive effect of globalization on growth is increased in countries with higher level of human capital and deeper financial development. Finally, economic globalization does affect growth, whether the effect is beneficial depends on the level of income of each group. It means that economies should have some initial condition to be benefited from the positive effects of globalization. The results explain why some countries have been successful in globalizing world and others not.

The findings of our study suggest that public policies designed to integrate to the world might are not optimal for economic growth by itself. Economic globalization not only directly promotes growth but also indirectly does so via complementary reforms.

The policy implications of this study are relatively straightforward. Integrating to the global economy is only one part of the story. The other is how to benefits more from globalization. In this respect, the responsibility of policymakers is to improve the level of educated workers and strength of financial systems to get more opportunities from globalization. These economic policies are important not only in their own right, but also in helping developing countries to derive the benefits of globalization.

However, implementation of new technologies transferred from advanced economies requires skilled workers. The results of this study confirm the importance of increasing educated workers as a complementary policy in progressing globalization. In fact, countries with higher level of human capital can better and faster imitate and implement the transferred technologies. The higher level of human capital and certain skill of human capital determine whether technology is successfully absorbed across countries. This shows the importance of human capital in the success of countries in the globalizing world.

Financial openness in the form of FDI brings along the knowledge and managerial for implementing the new technology. It can be helpful in upgrading the level of human capital in host countries. Moreover, strong and well-functioned financial systems can lead the flow of foreign capital to the productive and compatible sectors in OICs.

In addition, the results show that economic globalization does affect growth, whether the effect is beneficial depends on the level of income of countries. High and middle income countries benefit from globalization whereas low-income countries do not gain from it. As Birdsall [46] mentioned globalization is fundamentally asymmetric for poor countries, because their economic structure and markets are asymmetric. So, the risks of globalization hurt the poor more. The structure of the export of low-income countries heavily depends on primary commodity and natural resource which make them vulnerable to the global shocks.

The major research limitation of this study was the failure to collect data for all OIC countries. Therefore future research for all OIC countries would shed light on the relationship between economic globalization and economic growth.

Supporting Information

Sample of Countries.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087824.s001

The Name and Definition of Indicators.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087824.s002

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: PS. Performed the experiments: PS. Analyzed the data: PS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PS HSJ. Wrote the paper: PS HSJ.

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A Comprehensive Analysis of Globalization: Factors, Effects, and Economic Agents' Dynamics Across Developing and Developed Economies

12 Pages Posted: 17 Jan 2024

Aritro Chatterjee

Dubai College

Date Written: December 30, 2023

This paper explores various aspects of globalization, from the key factors attributed to its rapid increase in recent years—technological determinants, socioeconomic preferences, and governmental policy—to its effects on key economic agents and stakeholders in developing and developed countries. It also considers the correlation between global economic integration and multinational corporations as well as the associated benefits and detriments of foreign direct investment and multinational corporations for an economy.

Keywords: Globalization, Multinational Corporations, Foreign Direct Investment, Developing Countries, Developed Countries

JEL Classification: F60, F23, E00, E60, F15

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Aritro Chatterjee (Contact Author)

Dubai college ( email ), do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on ssrn, paper statistics, related ejournals, macroeconomics: employment, income & informal economy ejournal.

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The effect of globalization on economic development indicators: an inter-regional approach.

1. Introduction

2. literature review, 2.1. globalization, 2.1.1. per capita income, 2.1.2. government health expenditure, 2.2. empirical literature review, 3. materials and methods, 3.2. methodology.

• H 0 1 : KOF V   does   not   Granger   cause   INCOME V .
• H 0 2 : INCOME V   does   not   Granger   cause   KOF V .
• H 0 3 : KOF V   does   not   Granger   cause   HEALTH V .
• H 0 4 : HEALTH V   does   not   Granger   cause   KOF V .
• H 0 5 : INCOME V   does   not   Granger   cause   HEALTH V .
• H 0 6 : HEALTH V   does   not   Granger   cause   INCOME V .

5. Discussion

6. conclusions, author contributions, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Martín Cervantes, P.A.; Rueda López, N.; Cruz Rambaud, S. The Effect of Globalization on Economic Development Indicators: An Inter-Regional Approach. Sustainability 2020 , 12 , 1942. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12051942

Martín Cervantes PA, Rueda López N, Cruz Rambaud S. The Effect of Globalization on Economic Development Indicators: An Inter-Regional Approach. Sustainability . 2020; 12(5):1942. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12051942

Martín Cervantes, Pedro Antonio, Nuria Rueda López, and Salvador Cruz Rambaud. 2020. "The Effect of Globalization on Economic Development Indicators: An Inter-Regional Approach" Sustainability 12, no. 5: 1942. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12051942

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Global Evidence on the Impact of Globalization, Governance, and Financial Development on Economic Growth

• Published: 22 December 2023

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• Ijaz Uddin 1 &
• Muhammad Azam Khan 1  

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We examined the impact of globalization, governance, and financial development on per capita income representing economic growth for 156 countries across the globe during 2002–2018. The analysis is categorized into full samples, and sub samples (i.e., low, lower, upper middle-, & high-income countries). The empirical methodology consists of 1 st and 2 nd generation panel unit root tests, panel co-integration test, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS), Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS), and panel Dumitrescu Hurlin Granger causality test. The FMOLS and DOLS estimate indicated that financial development and human capital had a positive effect on economic growth for lower-income, lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income, high-income countries, and full sample. Governance factor namely control of corruption has a positive effect on economic growth in all income groups’ countries except lower-middle-income and full sample. The impact of governance factors namely political stability & absence of violence had a positive effect on economic growth in all income groups’ countries and full sample except upper-middle-income countries. Likewise, globalization had a positive effect on economic growth for all income groups’ countries, except full sample. These findings suggest that the developed financial sector, good governance, and globalization need to be strengthened to boost economic growth.

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Data availability.

Data used in this study for empirical examination have been obtained from the World Development Indicators ( 2021 ), the World Bank database, and World Governance Indicators ( 2021 ), the World Bank.

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Uddin, I., Azam Khan, M. Global Evidence on the Impact of Globalization, Governance, and Financial Development on Economic Growth. J Knowl Econ (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-023-01656-4

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Revisited Globalization’s Impact on Total Environment: Evidence Based on Overall Environmental Performance Index

Quan-jing wang.

1 School of Business, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China; nc.ude.uzz@jqw

2 School of Environment and Science Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Minhang District, Shanghai 200240, China; nc.ude.utjs@gnegy

Xi-Qiang Xia

Associated data.

The data for globalization is obtained from KOF Swiss Economic Institute: https://kof.ethz.ch/en/forecasts-and-indicators/indicators/kof-globalisation-index.html , the data for environmental performance is derived from Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy ( https://epi.yale.edu/ ) and Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University ( https://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/collection/epi ), data for green innovation is obtained from OECD statistics ( https://stats.oecd.org/ ), data for other variables can be found at World Development Indicator ( https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=wdi-database-archives-(beta ) (accessed on 27 October 2021).

This study aims to examine the impact of globalization on environmental performance by employing panel data for 148 countries from 2001 to 2018, via the indicator of Environmental Performance Index to capture the overall environmental quality and KOF index to measure the multi dimensions of globalization. The empirical results suggest that globalization is critical to environmental performance, which is reliable while we conduct several robustness tests. Furthermore, if globalization increases, it would be beneficial for the environmental performance; moreover, among specific dimensions of globalization, economic globalization, social globalization and political globalization would bring about better environmental performance. Besides, the improvement of globalization, social globalization and political globalization would bring about better environmental performance, while that of economic globalization cannot change the overall environmental performance. Our study offers more insight into the relationship between globalization and environmental performance.

1. Introduction

Environmental pollution is one of the biggest economic and social challenges that humanity faces in the foreseeable future. Social problems, such as human diseases, extinctions of animals, and soil desertification which caused by environmental pollution have been generally gaining attention from scholars, governments and individuals. (Based on Our World in Data, air pollution contributed to 9% of deaths in 2017 globally, while the highest ratio is 15% in North Korea.) The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations are shaping the global political agenda, and countries around the world have made active commitments to the goals (United Nations, 2019), so, how to improve the environmental performance is critical to sustainable development. A large body of literature investigates the factor of environmental performance from the perspective of economic development, human resources, energy usage and environmental technologies both on the country and the firm level (Wen et al., 2016, Niu et al., 2017; Pickering et al., 2020; Yang et al., 2021) [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Furthermore, globalization is also a critical factor in environmental performance since the scale effect, composition effect and technology effect brought by it would change the economic activities, energy efficiency and technologies (Copeland and Taylor, 2013) [ 5 ].

Following this idea, some scholars tried to investigate the impact of globalization on the environment; however, there are still some areas that needed to be further investigated and the results are inconclusive (Zafar et al., 2019 [ 6 ]; Bilgili et al., 2020 [ 7 ]). Specifically, there are three opposing ideas about the influence of globalization on environmental performance. One is that globalization does harm to the environment (You and Lv, 2018; [ 8 ] Pata, 2021 [ 9 ]). Other studies suggest that globalization benefits environmental performance. Some scholars support this idea from the perspective of CO 2 emissions (Ling et al., 2015; [ 10 ] Shahbaz et al., 2017 [ 11 ]). Some scholars stated that the impact of globalization on the environment varies among different countries (Hao, 2016; [ 12 ] Rudolph et al., 2017 [ 13 ]). Furthermore, there are also some problems among the existing empirical literature, such as only utilizing CO 2 emissions to represent environmental damage (Figge et al., 2017; [ 14 ] Gill et al., 2018 [ 15 ]), or merely paying attention to a specific dimension of globalization such as trade openness or foreign direct investment (Shahbaz et al., 2019; [ 16 ] Zafar et al., 2019 [ 6 ]), as well as only employing data for few countries (Shahbaz et al., 2018; [ 17 ] Akadiri et al., 2019 [ 18 ]).

Reviewing the literature, we can find that, even though a large amount of it focuses on the relationship between globalization and the environment, the majority of studies hold that globalization has a negative effect on the environment, while a considerable amount of literature supports the contention that globalization benefits the environment; therefore, the conclusion is inconclusive, and this topic needs to be further examined. Based on the abovementioned analysis, we can conclude that there are some gaps among existing studies, for instance, limited work examined the impact of globalization on overall environmental performance, since most studies usually measure the environmental degradation by CO 2 emissions. In addition, while most studies only focused on one specific dimension of globalization, such as trade or economic, limited work comprehensively investigated the role of globalization in environmental performance from the perspective of social, cultural and political globalization. Besides, limited work has attached importance to whether globalization’s change can affect the overall environmental performance. This scenario raises the following interesting questions that we aim to investigate: the first one is whether globalization influences overall environmental performance? If yes, can slowing or accelerating globalization affect national environmental performance? Furthermore, which dimension of globalization can significantly change the environmental performance? To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to empirically examine the impact of globalization on total environment, and the first to pay attention to the slowing or accelerating globalization.

To investigate such important issues, we collected multinational data covering 148 countries from 2001 to 2018 to conduct empirical testing by utilizing GMM estimation via the indicator of Environmental Performance Index and globalization variables provided by the KOF Swiss Institute (2020). The estimations support that globalization is critical to environmental performance. Hence, for the specific dimensions of globalization, economic globalization, social globalization and political globalization are beneficial for environmental performance. Finally, if the level of social globalization, political globalization or overall globalization experiences an increase, environmental performance would be also promoted, while slowing or accelerating economic globalization cannot change environmental performance.

The main contributions of our study are as follows. Firstly, unlike previous studies’ focus on the globalization’s impact on CO 2 emissions or ecological footprint, our study concentrates on the impact of globalization on total environment including air pollution, environmental health and ecosystem vitality, and investigates the role of globalization in overall environmental performance directly, which can offer more meaningful insight into environmental globalization and environmental politics, filling the gap among existing studies about the relationship between globalization and the environment (Shahbaz et al., 2016; [ 19 ] Bu et al.,2016; [ 20 ] Shahbaz et al., 2018; [ 17 ] Akadiri et al., 2019; [ 18 ] Karasoy and Akçay, 2019; [ 21 ] Khan and Ullah, 2019 [ 22 ]). Next, contrary to existing literature that examines the influence of globalization on the environment based on the data of few countries (Shahbaz et al., 2015; [ 23 ] Bilgili et al., 2020) [ 7 ], we carry out empirical tests by employing data for 148 multinational countries and GMM estimation, which can capture the dynamic progress of environmental performance and provide generally accepted conclusions worldwide.

In addition, to examine how the specific dimension of globalization can influence environmental performance, we include the four variables of economic globalization, social globalization, culture globalization and political globalization to measure the multi dimensions of globalization, which can comprehensively examine the broader influence of globalization on environmental performance, unlike the existing literature, which only pays attention to trade openness (Ling et al., 2015; [ 10 ] Hakimi and Hamdi, 2016; [ 24 ]; Destek et al., 2018 [ 25 ]). Finally, we further pay our attention to the slowing or acceleration of globalization, to provide more detailed evidence on the influence of globalization on environmental performance under the era of anti-globalization, which is a novelty among previous studies.

The remaining parts of this paper are organized as follows. Section 2 reviews relevant literature and proposes the hypothesis. Section 3 offers detailed information on the variables, data and estimation. Section 4 provides the empirical results and the discussion. Section 5 concludes the main findings and offers the policy implications based on the conclusion.

2. Literature Review and Hypothesis

2.1. literature review.

With the growth of globalization over recent decades, vast studies have tried to cover the influence of globalization on the environment. A strand of studies proposed that globalization would increase CO 2 emissions. For instance, Koçak and Şarkgüneşi (2018) [ 26 ] and Salahuddin et al. (2018) [ 27 ] empirically examined the influence of globalization on the environment via the indicator of FDI or trade openness and CO 2 emissions (Karasoy and Akçay, 2019 [ 21 ]). Other studies hold that globalization would reduce the ecological footprint, such as Bilgili et al. (2020) [ 7 ], who empirically investigated the impact of globalization on environmental sustainability in Turkey during 1970–2014 by utilizing the ecological footprint as a proxy for environmental sustainability and KOF globalization measurements, whose results suggest that the improvement of financial globalization, politic globalization, trade globalization and interpersonal globalization would reduce the ecological footprint growth; see also Mrabet and Alsamara (2017) [ 28 ]. Le et al. (2016) [ 29 ] utilized particulate matter to measure the environment and empirically tested the impact of globalization on the environment, supporting that trade openness would improve particulate matter; a similar conclusion can be found in Wang et al. (2018) [ 30 ]. Some scholars pointed out that globalization would negatively affect the environment by utilizing the KOF index to measure globalization. For instance, Khan et al. (2019) [ 31 ] empirically examined the influence of globalization on CO 2 emissions by utilizing data from Pakistan during 1971–2016 and suggested that the economic globalization, social globalization and political globalization exert a positive effect on CO 2 emissions both in the short run and the long run. See also Salahodjaev (2016) [ 32 ].

Another idea holds that globalization is beneficial for environmental performance. For instance, Grainger (2005) [ 33 ] studied the role of globalization in environmental protection from the perspective of environmental globalization, and proposed that environmental globalization would bring about a globalizing response by NGOs and governmental or intergovernmental institutions to regulate environmental degradation. Similarly, Charfeddine (2017) [ 34 ] carried out an empirical investigation on the influence of trade openness on the ecological footprint by utilizing data for Qatar, whose results showed that trade openness would benefit the improvement of the ecological footprint; see also Figge et al. (2017) [ 14 ]. Some scholars also support globalization’s positive effect on the environment by utilizing the KOF index to measure globalization. For example, Zafar et al. (2019) [ 6 ] empirically examined the influence of globalization on CO 2 emissions by utilizing data of OECD countries from 1990 to 2014 and pointed out that globalization would reduce national CO 2 emissions. See also Akadiri et al. (2019) [ 18 ].

Moreover, some scholars stated that globalization’s impact on the environment varies among different dimensions. For instance, Rudolph et al. (2017) [ 13 ] examined the influence of globalization on the ecological footprint in 146 countries from 1981 to 2009, and found that specific dimensions of globalization exert different influences on the environment. Destek et al. (2018) [ 25 ] supported that economic globalization and social globalization would increase CO 2 emissions while political globalization reduce the CO 2 emissions. Besides, Haseeb et al. (2018) [ 35 ] and Salahuddin et al. (2019) [ 36 ] suggested that there exists no significant influence of globalization on CO 2 emissions.

In addition to the inconclusive findings, while we review the empirical literature for the relationship between globalization and environmental performance, we find that there are some lacking which needed to be further investigated. The first problem of the empirical investigations for globalization’s impact on the environment is that a large body of studies utilized CO 2 emissions or the ecological footprint to represent environmental damage (Bilgili et al., 2020 [ 7 ]; Winslow, et al. 2005 [ 37 ]; Kashwan, et al. 2017 [ 38 ]; Stern et al. [ 39 ]). Even CO 2 emissions contribute to most of the environmental damage, it cannot capture the other specific aspects of environmental performance. The second problem of the empirical investigations of globalization’s impact on the environment is that most researchers only focused on one dimension of globalization such as trade openness or foreign direct invest (Hakimi and Hamdi, 2016; [ 24 ] Ling et al., 2015; [ 10 ] Destek et al., 2018 [ 25 ]), scant consideration is given to other dimensions of globalization such as social, cultural and political globalization (Ulucak et al., 2020; [ 40 ]). The third problem of the empirical investigations of globalization’s impact on the environment is that majority of the literature only empirically tests the influence of globalization on the environment by employing data of one country or few countries (Mrabet and Alsamara, 2017; [ 28 ] Charfeddine, 2017; [ 34 ] Shahbaz et al., 2018; [ 17 ] Salahuddin et al., 2018; [ 27 ] Akadiri et al., 2019 [ 18 ]). Empirical investigations based on few countries cannot offer more common implications for the role of globalization in the environment and may cause some unreliable results.

2.2. Hypothesis

The influence of globalization on environmental performance can be understood as follows. Firstly, globalization may lead to the strengthening, expansion and deepening of global networks, which can bring higher global uniformity and connectivity of conventional environmental management (Grainger, 2005) [ 33 ]. Compared with countries that prefer protectionist policies, countries that participate in globalization are more likely to promote environmental protection through environmental globalization (Shahbaz et al., 2019 [ 16 ]). Furthermore, Kull et al. (2007) [ 41 ] supported the idea that globalization usually leads to the expansion and acceptance of neoliberal economic ideas, as well as support for the privatization and formal registration of land, implying that countries with higher levels of globalization would gain a better environmental performance by improving the utilization of land than countries with a lower level of globalization (Twerefou et al., 2017 [ 42 ]).

In addition, Meyfroidt and Lambin (2011) [ 43 ] suggested that, compared to countries carrying out protectionism measures, open countries can conduct better environmental management thorough the channels such as reforestation on abandoned land, international nongovernmental organizations on environments, multilateral environmental conventions, and aid agencies (Grau and Aide, 2008; [ 44 ] Hecht, 2010 [ 45 ]). Besides, they declared that with appropriate polices on forest regulations, globalization could yield benefits for the natural environment among open countries (Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2010) [ 46 ]. Finally, As suggested by Grossman and Krueger (1991) [ 47 ], globalization could help open countries to improve their environmental performance as well as to reduce the adverse effects on the environment by technology transfer from developed countries. Based on the abovementioned analyses, we propose following hypothesis:

Globalization has a positive impact on overall national environmental performance as moderated by national economic, social and political openness.

3. Variable, Data and Methodology

3.1. variables.

Environmental Performance Index ( EPI ): In line with Yang et al. (2021) [ 4 ], we measure the environmental performance with the score of Environmental Performance Index (denoted by EPI ), provided by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University. We select this variable for the following reasons: firstly, EPI is a comprehensive evaluation of overall national environmental quality, including most aspects of environmental impact such as air pollution, ecological footprint, forest, climate change, energy and so on (Solarin et al., 2017). [ 48 ] Secondly, aside from environmental health, EPI also reflects the facets of ecosystem vitality (Niu et al., 2017) [ 2 ]. Based on such advantages, this study prefers to measure environmental performance by utilizing EPI . A higher value of EPI represents better environmental performance.

Globalization (Global): Globalization indicators such as trade openness and inward foreign direct investment, as well as the data of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute are generally utilized in the existing literature (Feng et al., 2019; [ 49 ] Zheng et al., 2019 [ 50 ]), comparing to other indexes such as trade openness and IFDI that only capture the specific aspect of trade globalization, the KOF index can reflect overall globalization. The variable Globalization is a comprehensive index for globalization, which is a combination of three main dimensions of globalization—economic, social and political globalization, and so forth. To better capture the globalization of one country, we utilize the globalization data provided by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute (2020), denoted by Global. A higher value of Global represents a higher level of globalization.

The main descriptions of EPI and the KOF index are listed in Table 1 ; we also provide the information about three issue categories, economic globalization (Global_economic), social globalization (Global_social) and political globalization (Global_political), which would be utilized to carry out robustness tests.

Main description for variables of EPI and Global.

To control other factors of environmental performance, we include other economic, social and political variables into our estimations in accordance with previous studies (Galli et al., 2020; [ 51 ] Vanham et al., 2019; [ 52 ] Wang et al., 2019; [ 53 ] Wang et al., 2021 [ 54 ]).

• (1) Per capita real GDP (GDP): Saboori et al. (2012) [ 55 ] proposed that there is a significant influence of economic development on GHG emissions in both the short term and the long term. More economic activities usually cause more GHG emissions or other pollutants, thus reducing environmental performance. To capture the effect of economic development on environmental performance, we incorporate it in the model, which is measured by per capita real GDP that is constant at 2010 US dollars (hereafter denoted by GDP).
• (2) Proportion of manufacturing sectors to GDP (IND): As Romano (2013) [ 56 ] stated, GHG emissions from industrial sources account for 20% of total GHG emissions, with the cement, refinery, and iron and steel industries taking the highest shares. It is reasonable to infer that, while the share of manufacturing is higher, the carbon emissions experience an increase, which may lead to a worse environmental performance. Therefore, to control the influence of manufacturing on environmental performance, we set it as an explanatory variable, which is measured by the proportion of value added by the manufacturing sectors to GDP (denoted by Ind).
• (3) Total population (POP): Nakicenovic et al. (2000) [ 57 ] studied the relationship between climate change and population, noting that the population is a major driving force of GHG emissions, implying that a greater population is more likely to cause a worse environmental performance. To test the potential influence of population on environmental performance, we include it as an explanatory variable, which is calculated by total population (hereafter denoted by POP).
• (4) Population density (Density): Norman et al. (2006) [ 58 ] investigated the relationship between climate change and population density and concluded on a per capita basis that GHG emissions of low-density areas are 2–2.5 times more intensive than those in high-density areas. To control for the influence of population density on environmental performance, we include it in the model as an explanatory variable defined by people per square km (denoted by Density) (Wang et al., 2019) [ 53 ].
• (5) Education (Education): A higher level of education usually means that citizens are more likely to produce or live in an environment friendly manner, as well as have an improved awareness of environmental protection. We thus include the level of education in our model, which is measured by the enrolment in secondary education according to Wang et al. (2019) [ 53 ], which is denoted by Education.
• (6) Urbanization rate (Urban): Lin et al. (2017) [ 59 ] investigated the influence of population urbanization and land urbanization on environmental impact by employing data for Chinese cities, and concluded that urbanization is a key factor for environmental impact. We thus introduce urbanization in our model, which is measured by the share of urban residents to total population (denoted by Urban).
• (7) Democracy (Democ): As Held and Hervey (2011) [ 60 ] noted, democracies have fewer restrictions on information, as scientists and concerned citizens have access to engage in events about climate change, and pressure from social institutions and individual citizens can push governments to take more measures to solve the problems caused by climate change and put more effort into protecting the environment. To control for the potential influence of democracy on environmental performance, we employ the indicator of Bjørnskov and Rode (2019) [ 61 ] (hereafter denoted by Democ).
• (8) Utilization of land (Forest): National forests are beneficial for the mitigation of air pollution, as well as for the protection of soil and environmental health. We thus use the forest change to measure the utilization of land. Following previous literature (Meyfroidt and Lambin, 2011 [ 43 ]), we measure forest protection by the growth rate of forests, which is calculated by the percent of net forest change to forest area of the previous year, denoted by Forest.
• (9) Environmental innovation (GI): The progress of environmental innovation is an effective way to improve energy efficiency for reducing energy consumption and mitigating GHG emissions (Grant et al., 2016; [ 62 ] Jorgenson et al., 2019 [ 63 ]). Shao et al. (2011) [ 64 ] captured green innovation by environmental innovation (denoted by GI), which highly relates to environmental protection R&D and the improvement of energy efficiency. Environmental innovation is measured by the total number of patents for environmental management, which is obtained from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Statistics. This variable is standardized based on the total population.

3.2. Data Source and Descriptive

Data for EPI are derived from the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, (Website of the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy: https://epi.envirocenter.yale.edu/epi-downloads . (accessed on 2 March 2021) Website of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network: https://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/collection/epi . (accessed on 21 February 2021) while data for Global are provided by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute. ( https://kof.ethz.ch/en/forecasts-and-indicators/indicators/kof-globalisation-index.html (accessed on 22 February 2021) Data for Democ are obtained from Bjørnskov and Rode (2019) [ 61 ], while data for GI are derived from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the data for the other variables are provided by the World Bank. We merge all data together based on the country and year; after deleting the missing values, we obtain an unbalanced panel data covering 148 countries from 2001 to 2018. All variables are taken into their natural logarithms by plus 1, except for Democ and Forest.

Table 2 provides the basic descriptive statistics of these variables. For EPI , the minimum, and maximum are 2.843, and 4.520, respectively; while the mean and standard deviation (S.D) are 4.110 and 0.312, respectively, suggesting that the environmental performance fluctuates less among such sample countries. Next, we pay attention to globalization: the min, mean, median and max of Global are 3.282, 4.133, 4.160 and 4.522, respectively, while the S.D is 0.256. For other variables, the mean and median of GDP are 8.663 and 8.704, with an S.D of 1.486, suggesting that the economic performance varies among these countries.

Data Descriptive.

3.3. Estimating Methods—GMM

As suggested by previous studies, panel estimation is more valid than time series and cross-section estimation, since it includes the two dimensions of time and individual which can improve the efficiency and offer more information about individuals’ dynamic progress, as well as solving the potential problems caused by missing variables (Wen et al., 2016; [ 1 ] Wang et al., 2021 [ 54 ]).

In line with Wen et al. (2016) [ 1 ], we also conduct empirical testing for the impact of globalization on environmental performance using system GMM estimation, which can control the lag term of EPI , meaning to include the dynamic progress of EPI , which is given below:

where i = 1 , 2 , 3 … N   is the dimension of individuals and t = 1 , 2 , 3 … T is the time dimension. E P I is the environmental performance, while E P I i , t − 1 is the first lag of it, to test the dynamic progress of environmental performance; G l o b a l is the variable of globalization, and the other terms are similar to those in Equation (1). X represents the control variables, β stands for the corresponding coefficient, u i and u t capture the individual and time fixed effects, respectively; i = 1 , 2 , 3 … N   stand for the individual country; t = 1 , 2 , 3 … T refers to the year; and ε i t is the error term.

4. Empirical Results

4.1. baseline results.

Table 3 presents the results of system GMM estimation for globalization’s influence on environmental performance. We only consider Global and the year fixed effect in column (1), and include other factors which may affect environmental performance in the remaining regressions. It can be found that that the coefficient of Global in column (1) is 0.222, passing the significance test at the 1% level with a positive symbol, suggesting that a higher level of globalization benefits environmental performance. Furthermore, while we include the economic performance and industrial structure into the model, the coefficient of Global in column (2) is 0.269, which is significantly positive at the 1% level, again confirming the positive influence of globalization on environmental performance. Similarly, while we take other factors, such as population, education, IFDI, urbanization, trade openness and democracy, into the estimation, the results in column (3)–(6) all support globalization’s positive impact on environmental performance. In addition, while we pay attention to the lag term of EPI , we can obtain that all coefficients of L. EPI in columns (1)–(6) pass the significance test at the 1% level with a positive symbol, indicating that environmental performance is a dynamic process; an earlier effort on environmental protection would produce better outcomes for the current environmental performance. The main reason for this phenomenon is that higher globalization usually brings about the technology effect and general concerns about environmental protection, which eventually result in a better environmental performance (Copeland and Taylor, 2013) [ 5 ].

The impact of globalization on EPI —SYS-GMM estimation.

Notes: ***, **, and * indicate statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% levels, respectively. Z-statistics are in parenthesis.

Our baseline results offer strong evidence that globalization tends to be better for environmental performance, which is similar to the research of Akadiri et al. (2019) [ 18 ] who argued that environmental globalization does some good for environmental protection, as well as Zafar et al. (2019) [ 6 ], who proposed that globalization would bring about the displacement of national deforestation.

To guarantee the credibility of our earlier finding, we further conduct several robustness tests such as changing the estimations, changing the measurement of globalization and constructing the new samples.

4.2. DIFF-GMM Estimation

First, we re-estimate the impact of globalization on environmental performance by employing the difference GMM estimation. Table 4 presents the results of difference GMM estimation for globalization’s influence on environmental performance. Similar to Table 3 , we add the other control variables successively in columns (1)–(6). It can be found that that the coefficient of Global in column (1) is 1.021, which is significantly positive at the 1% level. Furthermore, while we include other variables in the estimation, the results in columns (2)–(6) all support globalization’s positive impact on environmental performance. The results in Table 4 are similar to those in Table 3 , suggesting that our results are reliable.

Robustness test—DIFF-GMM estimations.

4.3. Change the Measurement of Globalization

Secondly, Rudel (2002) [ 65 ] argued that globalization means not only economic globalization, but is also a multifaceted phenomenon with essential cultural and political dimensions (see also Grainger (2005) [ 33 ] as well as Khan and Ullah (2019) [ 22 ]). There are three main issue categories in the KOF index—economic globalization, social globalization and political globalization. For economic globalization, unlike earlier international trade and IFDI which cause serious environmental adverse effects, “environmentally friendly” is an important characteristic of current trade activities, meaning that the scale effect brought by economic globalization is weaker (Zafar et al., 2019) [ 6 ]. Meanwhile, the technique effect brought about by economic globalization would do some good to change the manner of producing activities or the application of energy-saving technologies, which may improve environmental performance (Ling et al., 2015) [ 10 ]. For social globalization, higher interpersonal or informational globalization means that the communication between domestic citizens and foreigners is more convenient, which offers individuals more access to information about environmental protection, influencing citizens with the global concern about the environment, thus putting more pressure on governments to protect the environment (You and Lv, 2018) [ 8 ]. Additionally, social globalization would lead to a greater transfer of knowledge or technologies between a host country and other countries, as well as the human capital, thus offering the country more power to achieve a better environmental performance. For political globalization, a higher level of political globalization usually brings about more international organizations and treaties; with the growing importance of environmental protection worldwide, more international NGOs and treaties often push governments to conduct measures to improve the national environmental performance (Kull et al., 2007) [ 41 ].

We thus measure the specific dimensions of globalization, such as economic globalization, social globalization and political globalization (More detailed information of such variables can be seen in the KOF Swiss Index.) The results for these variables are listed in columns (1)–(3) of Table 5 . The coefficient of Global_Economic is 0.289, which is significant and positive at the 1% level, indicating that a higher level of economic globalization usually brings about better environmental performance. Similarly, the results in columns (2) and (3) show that the coefficients of Global_Social, and Global_Political are 0.526, and 0.083, respectively; both are significant at the 1% level, suggesting that social globalization and political globalization would also positively affect environmental performance. These results are in line with Kull et al. (2007) [ 41 ], who supported the idea that globalization is a multifaceted phenomenon and political globalization affects the environment, and Khan and Ullah (2019) [ 22 ], who argued that economic globalization and social globalization would affect CO 2 emissions.

Robustness test—specific dimension of globalization.

4.4. Slowing or Accelerating Globalization

With the slowdown of globalization, trade protectionism is on the rise; both OECD countries and non-OECD countries have tried to bring their manufacturing sectors back to their home countries (Zhu and Jiang, 2019) [ 66 ]. Considering this phenomenon, we further query whether the slowing or acceleration of globalization affects environmental performance by setting a new variable, which is calculated by the difference of Global, Global_economic, Global_Social, Global_Political, whose results are listed in Table 6 . It can be seen that the coefficient of ΔGlobal in column (1) is 0.647, which is significantly positive at the 1% level, suggesting that the increase of globalization would bring about a better environmental performance. Similarly, while we pay attention to the specific dimensions of globalization, the results of which are given in columns (2)–(4), we can obtain that the improvement of social globalization and political globalization also promotes environmental performance, while the improvement of economic globalization would not change the environmental performance.

Robustness test—slowing or accelerating globalization.

4.5. New Samples

Similar to Wang et al. (2019) [ 53 ], we re-conduct the empirical test based on new samples by removing the outliers which possess the first and last 10% of EPI , the results of which are given in Table 7 . We can find that the coefficient of Global, Global_Economic, Global_Social and Global_political is significantly positive at the 1% level. The results in Table 7 support our earlier statements.

Robustness test—Middle 80% sub-sample.

5. Conclusions

In the context of environmental politics, this paper focuses on the impact of globalization on environmental performance by utilizing multinational data for 148 countries during the period 2001–2018, along with system GMM estimation via the indicators of globalization, given by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute (2020), and the environmental performance index ( EPI ), which is a comprehensive evaluation of overall national environmental quality covering environmental health, water, air pollution, biodiversity and habitat, forests, fisheries, agriculture, climate change, and energy. The estimation supports the hypothesis that globalization exerts a significantly positive influence on environmental performance, meaning that higher levels of globalization would bring about better environmental performance. This finding is credible as we carry out several robustness tests by employing another estimation of difference, GMM estimation, or considering specific dimensions of globalization such as economic globalization, social globalization, and political globalization, as well as setting new samples by removing the outliers. Furthermore, for the specific dimensions, economic globalization, social globalization and political globalization would improve the environmental performance. Finally, we also investigated whether the improvement of globalization can affect environmental performance, suggesting that with increasing social globalization, political globalization and overall globalization, the environmental performance would also experience an increase.

Our findings offer several policy implications for policy-makers. First, given that globalization is critical to environmental protection, governments can take advantage of globalization to spread the idea of environmental protection, namely environmental globalization, and can improve the structure of economic activities or international trade led by economic globalization. Secondly, among the multi-dimensions of globalization besides economic globalization, social globalization benefits environmental performance; the governments should increase efforts to stimulate the communication between domestic societies and abroad, which may increase citizens’ cognition of environmental protection against the background that environmental protection and sustainable ecosystems are generally accepted globally. Furthermore, since the increase of globalization would do some good to gain a better environmental performance, against the background of anti-globalization and post-novel coronavirus, those governments preferring better environmental quality should take measures to control the coronavirus and spread the importance of globalization for environmental protection, which can improve the global environment totally. In addition, since the international trade or FDI may bring some environmental adverse effects caused by the displaced environmental pollution from developed countries. While governments participate in globalization, they should pay attention to those trade activities or FDI that may cause environmental damage. Governments can levy an extra tax on these products or services to spend on environmental protection. Similarly, governments can require the importers of products that have environmental adverse effects to pay carbon fees based on the carbon emissions generated during the production process of the product, as the European Union has proposed. Finally, it is worth noting that our study may have limitations, since the KOF index we utilized in this study assigns equal weight to economic globalization, social globalization and political globalization while calculating the total level of globalization; however, countries may have different weights in terms of these dimensions according to their economic or social development. This essential problem should be further investigated once we have obtained a more accurate database for the weight of different countries.

Author Contributions

Q.-J.W. had the initial idea for the study and interpreted the results. Y.G. designed the conceptual framework of the methodology, drafted and revised the manuscript. X.-Q.X. performed the calculations and analyzed the data. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (funding number: 71702174); National Natural Science Foundation of China (funding number: 72088101); National Natural Science Foundation of China (funding number: 71810107001); Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (funding number: 21YJC630140); University Science and Technology Innovation Program of He’ nan (funding number: 2021-CX-007).

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Does globalization mitigate environmental degradation in selected emerging economies? assessment of the role of financial development, economic growth, renewable energy consumption and urbanization

Affiliations.

• 1 Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Economics, Tekirdag Namik Kemal University, Tekirdağ, Turkey.
• 2 Vocational School of Social Sciences, Department of International Trade, Kayseri University, Kayseri, Turkey. [email protected].
• 3 Vocational School of Social Sciences, Department of International Trade, Kayseri University, Kayseri, Turkey.
• 4 Esai Business School, Universidad Espíritu Santo, Samborondon, 091650, Ecuador.
• PMID: 37651012
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-29467-9

While the acceleration of globalization in newly developing (emerging) economies contributes positively to economic developments on the one hand, it is a research topic that can have an impact on environmental pollution on the other hand. Therefore, this study analyzes the impact of globalization on environmental pollution for 14 emerging economies in the 1991-2018 period by including economic growth, financial development, renewable energy consumption, and urbanization in the ecological footprint model. In addition to the AMG forecaster, Driscoll-Kraay, PCSE, and FGLS estimation techniques are used for long-term forecasting. Causal linkages among variables are analyzed by the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel bootstrap causality test. The findings show that the series are cointegrated, that is, a long-term relationship between the variables. In the long term, globalization and renewable energy consumption reduce environmental pollution, while economic growth and financial development play a role in encouraging environmental pollution. Causality analysis enumerates a causality from economic growth and financial development to environmental pollution, as well as a two-way causality between globalization and environmental pollution and renewable energy consumption and environmental pollution. Empirical findings can offer important implications for policies that will reduce environmental pollution in these countries.

Keywords: AMG; Ecological footprint; Emerging countries; Globalization; Panel bootstrap causality.

© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

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The place of health in the EU-CELAC interregional cooperation from 2005 to 2023: a historical, empirical and prospective analysis

• Carolina Salgado   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6808-2116 1  

Globalization and Health volume  20 , Article number:  60 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Much has been said by actors from different fields and perspectives about the manifold changes in world affairs triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, it is to be expected that there will be impacts on long-standing partnerships such as the one between the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Countries. However, few studies have demonstrated these impacts, either empirically, by uncovering their specificities or from a historical perspective, to allow for a reasonable methodological comparison of the patterns used to define the partnership and that have changed or have been affected in some way by the pandemic.

Through an in-depth qualitative assessment of primary and secondary sources, this article contributes to this research gap. It analyzes the patterns and changes or impacts in light of two strands of behavior that can make sense of EU-CELAC health cooperation—revisionist or reformist. The findings show an economy-driven health agenda as a new pattern of cooperation, which derives from EU reformist behavior after the pandemic.

Conclusions

The EU power to enforce its priorities in the context of health cooperation with CELAC is the main factor that will define how (and not just which) competing interests and capacities will be accommodated. The relevance of the study to the fields of global governance for health, interregional health cooperation and EU foreign policy is threefold. It shows us i.how two more international regimes are easily intertwined with health—trade and intellectual property—with the potential to deepen asymmetries and divergences even between long-standing strategic partners; ii.contrary to the idea that reformist behaviors are only adopted by actors who are dissatisfied with the status quo, the study shows us that the reformist actor can also be the one who has more material power and influence and who nevertheless challenges the success of cooperation in the name of new priorities and the means to achieve them; and iii.how the EU will find it difficult to operationalize its new priorities internally, among states and private actors, and with those of CELAC, given the history of intense disputes over health-related economic aspects.

Introduction

Much has been said by actors from different fields and perspectives about the manifold changes in world affairs triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it was not the first nor the deadliest pandemic in contemporary epidemiological history, it has reinforced, during and after its eclosion (January-March 2020 to May 2023), some disturbing truths underpinning those claims about changes, such as capitalism having no resilience, nationalism comes before cooperation, crises happen simultaneously in cascade effect and, unfortunately, in a number of cases, money matters more than lives.

In this context, it is to be expected that there will be impacts on long-standing partnerships such as the one between the European Union (EU) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (CELAC), which was initiated even before the formalization of CELAC occurred at the Summit of the Unity of Latin America and the Caribbean, in the Riviera Maya (Mexico), in 2010. In fact, experts agree that 1999 was a landmark, with the institutionalization of EU-LAC Strategic Partnership, and that “the creation of CELAC in 2010 brought an opportunity for a more structured EU-LAC dialogue, which became organized into EU-CELAC Summits and Action Plans” [ 39 ]:IX).

As the examples provided in this research demonstrate with respect to the health area, it is important to note that the EU-CELAC partnership builds on normative and ideational sharing of values and principles historically consolidated, which drives their respective interests and means regarding policies´ implementation. This is why the partnership has been considered here since before CELAC was formalized, and this understanding is supported by publications released by the European Commission and other studies on different areas [ 5 , 51 ]. It is considered that we cannot grasp recent developments of specific cooperative engagements without knowing how they came into being, especially when the bi-regional relations have a long road.

Zooming a bit in this road, although the EU-CELAC partnership is multifaceted – involving areas such as the strengthening of human rights and democracy; cooperative ties in health, science and technology; support of regionalism and regional spaces for debate and joint actions – it is clear that trade links remain at the center. EU-CELAC experts explain that “various interregional association agreements, economic partnership agreements, multiparty trade agreements and bilateral framework agreements are components of this relationship” [ 39 ]:VII), reinforcing each other as trade priorities despite recent changes in the global trade landscape, especially with regard to China's role in CELAC. As for researches, it is common to find compilations [ 57 ] and comparative studies [ 56 , 61 ] involving EU-CELAC manifold agendas, mainly due to the creation of the EU-LAC Foundation in 2010 as a tool of the partnership that feeds into the intergovernmental dialogue.

In contrast, few studies have demonstrated impacts of systemic changes (such as the latest pandemic) on EU-CELAC partnership, either empirically, by uncovering their specificities, or from a historical perspective, to allow for a reasonable methodological comparison of the patterns used to define the partnership and that have changed or have been affected in some way by these changes. This article contributes to this research gap through a thorough analysis of empirical documents produced within the EU-CELAC health cooperation over time. In doing so, it also contributes to the literature on EU regional health cooperation, emphasizing the specificities of this case that can be mobilized, in further research, in relation to some of the EU’s other regional health partnerships. Footnote 1  I give a brief overview of this literature and then present the methods of analyzes, explaining why and how they were employed through the study.

The literature on EU regional health cooperation [ 35 , 52 , 55 , 62 ], like other regional organizations, draws on the concept of ‘global health governance’ which, for systemic reasons that have to do with globalization [ 54 ], emerged simultaneously with the social determinants of health, an approach systematized by the WHO´s Commission on Social Determinants of Health in 2008 [ 3 ]. The approach and the related concept indicate that, since health issues are inevitably transnational, cooperation must incorporate a whole array of stakeholders. In this sense, regional organizations act as a bridge between global initiatives and national policy implementation. In the case of the EU, although it has a specific body for health policy within the Commission, which is the DG for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO), according to the Lisbon Treaty its mandate is to act as a complement to national policy-making. In order to do this, the EU establishes strategies Footnote 2 aiming at improving coherence of policy recommendations, “aligning member states on a similar value system for health improvement (…) and reinforce the regional institution´s role as a global actor in health governance” [ 55 ]:2–3). Such a role is based on a horizontal integration of public health, considered as a prime objective in all sectors of policy-making [ 53 ]. Together with DG SANCO, other EU agencies Footnote 3 are important partners within a wider network that includes a WHO EURO, a regional office of the WHO based in Copenhagen and, very important, the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), a civil society organization for health cooperation.

The article offers a systematization of the patterns of EU-CELAC cooperation in health and their multilateral engagement from a historical perspective, from 2005 until the present, to empirically understand how and what has changed in such patterns since the COVID-19 pandemic. The systematization aims to analyze these changes in light of two strands of behavior that can make sense of EU-CELAC health cooperation – revisionist, meaning "reviewing previous disagreements", or reformist, meaning "setting new priorities". I employ the inductive method of testing the hypothesis stated below through the qualitative content analysis of thirty primary sources available online and listed in the linked references, in addition to secondary literature that dialog directly with these sources. The inductive analysis has the main purpose of uncovering causal mechanisms and interactions effects underlying EU-CELAC health cooperation over time. I aim to understand precisely the logic behind the widespread assumption that the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered manifold changes in world affairs by taking the idea of change seriously. For doing that, the EU-CELAC health cooperation is a paradigmatic case-study because it allows us for a reasonable methodological comparison of the patterns used to define the partnership and that have changed or have been affected in some way by the pandemic.

The subsidiary hypothesis is the following: revisionist behavior is a common pattern among actors who are constantly engaged in interregional relations marked by great asymmetry of power, as is the case with CELAC and the EU in their history of cooperation. This behavior reflects the fact that diffusing the ideas and interests that make up common projects is far from simple [ 48 , 49 ]. Political coordination around the elements that define the object, instruments and mechanisms of cooperation is permeated by disputes informed by the different identities and worldviews of decision-makers and stakeholders [ 31 , 64 ]. As a result, we can expect a variety of mechanisms and outcomes for each project that, if qualitatively assessed, reveal relevant aspects about the disputes themselves and, therefore, about the politics of cooperation [ 36 , 37 ]. In contrast, reformist behavior denotes a significant change in the pattern of cooperation because it raises new priorities that reflect an internal review of foreign policy direction and that may not have been properly negotiated beforehand with counterparties. To the extent that this behavior reforms the cooperation space itself, impacting values and approaches that often happen to facilitate dialog, the reformist actor also challenges the success of the partnership in the name of his priorities and means to achieve them on a given international agenda.

By means of in-depth qualitative assessment of primary sources available online about the projects that paved the EU-CELAC interregional cooperation in health, with further mobilization of secondary literature directly related to these sources, I could identify patterns related to issue areas, outputs, practices and values that are found in all of them until the COVID-19 pandemic and that characterize a rationale of development through health, with a focus on social dimensions. Then, I put these sources in perspective of the EU-CELAC multilateral engagement by mapping the behavior of both partners within the Oslo Group Footnote 4 through their support of the resolutions approved in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the period of the research, 2008–2020. Such endeavors are in section one, the findings of which indicate that biregional projects did reflect their foreign policy goals within the global governance for health, despite possible disagreements on specific targets, perceptions and methods of interaction. In the second section, I turn to the period after the pandemic to assess what and how changes may have taken place. In sections one and two, I present the respective results in order to give a clearer understanding of which and how the referred primary sources were analyzed.

Preliminary discussion and research goal

By the end of 2021, in a political response to the pandemic, the European Commission set out the Global Gateway strategy, which was followed by the EU Global Health Strategy, launched in November 2022. My claim is that when one looks superficially at health strategy´s three policy priorities, there is not much difference regarding their previous health projects and the resolutions mostly supported by the EU and CELAC countries at UNGA in terms of language, of the way ideas are presented and discourses are written. However, going deeper in the primary sources and carefully analyzing priorities, guiding principles and lines of action of the EU Global Health Strategy, in addition to following news, press releases and communications available mainly in the website of DG International Partnerships, the research indicates that the kind of changes in EU-CELAC interregional cooperation in health, this time, reflects the dominance of EU interests. We can see that the main pattern of interregional cooperation moved from development through health , as it was in the previous projects embracing social cohesion, drug policies and policy-oriented health research, to the current economy-driven health development —a movement clearly propelled by an EU reformist behavior by means of elevating health technologies and manufacturing as priorities for cooperation with CELAC after the pandemic.

Notwithstanding the fact that such a move was propelled by the EU as observed from its sources that directly address health cooperation with CELAC after the pandemic, one must recognize that, by looking from CELAC, several actions and choices made throughout the pandemic might have influenced the adoption of EU´s changing behavior as displayed in its cooperation strategy with CELAC. It is worth highlighting some examples of CELAC´s initiatives in this regard, of which the CELAC Plan on Health Self-Sufficiency  [ 12 ] discussed within the following sections is the main one. Approved by the XXI Summit of Foreign Ministers of CELAC, held on July 24, 2021 in Mexico, this Plan arises with the idea that Latin America and the Caribbean becomes an actor in the development and production of new vaccines, within the framework of a concerted regional health strategy. There are evidences to support this idea in the large number of technical meetings CELAC has promoted Footnote 5 in order to strength its institutional capacity facing the pandemic – linked to emergencies, preparedness and monitoring, in addition to access and production of medicines, vaccines and strategic supplies.

Moreover, another example seems critical in terms of potentially influence upon the EU: the distribution of respirators, syringes and needles, masks and diagnostic kits donated by China through CELAC. China's cooperation with the region has had to do with the production of vaccines and medicines and the transfer of technologies and sale of pharmaceutical supplies in the region. Therefore, this background allows us to say that: (i) the EU's cooperation with CELAC after the pandemic occurs in a geopolitical context where, on the one hand, China has made significant progress in cooperation with most Latin American countries and, on the other hand, the United States and Europe have lost hegemonic power in the CELAC countries; (ii) the EU´s interests reflected in its renewed strategy are embedded in such geopolitical context, therefore, in some sense reacting to CELAC´s initiatives that have emerged during the pandemic. In this way, the research goal falls upon the EU because changes in patterns used to define the partnership were openly triggered by the EU´s renewed cooperation strategy with CELAC. This fact reinforces the second point made in the abstract, regards the relevance of this study, which I retake here: contrary to the idea that reformist behaviors are only adopted by actors who are dissatisfied with the status quo, the study shows us that the reformist actor – in this case, the EU – can also be the one who has more material power and historical influence, and who nevertheless challenges the success of cooperation in the name of new priorities and the means to achieve them.

To advance the goal of the research—which is to understand how and what has changed in patterns used to define the partnership and which have changed or have been affected in some way by the COVID-19 pandemic—I systematize the analysis in terms of revisionist or reformist behavior. Although the initiatives are yet to be implemented and, therefore, we cannot empirically evaluate their outcomes and reactions, the in-depth qualitative research of several primary sources in addition to the historical path of the politics of cooperation in health between the EU and CELAC within a period of eighteen years in different settings allows me to say that we are witnessing a reformist behavior on the EU side. The EU has redirected its foreign policy with the Global Gateway and a number of instruments, such as Team Europe, and a significant amount of funding for different issue areas and regions. Economy-driven health development means that the EU has mobilized its economic power to promote health priorities whose means of implementation are constitutive parts of the main divergences in biregional relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, as will be seen below.

In the third section, therefore, I discuss the results. I take as a point of reference how historical differences in approaches to health between the two regions have been negotiated, with a focus on the issue of pharmaceutical manufacturing and health technologies. Its aim is to support a plausible interpretation of the impact that changing EU behavior and priorities may have on the EU-CELAC partnership in the field of health within the framework of the EU Global Gateway (2021–2027), in prospective terms. In the concluding section, I summarize the content and introduce avenues for further research.

The patterns of EU-CELAC cooperation in health and their multilateral engagement: a qualitative assessment of main initiatives between 2005 and 2019

The first interregional cooperation project with specific health concerns was “Strengthening the health sector in Latin America as a vector of social cohesion”, referred to as EUROsociAL/Salud, which was implemented between 2005 and 2009. In its website [ 22 ], we read that the contribution of health systems to social cohesion depends in large part on the equity of these systems in a broad sense. In this sense, health equity contemplates three dimensions: equity in the health status of individuals, access to services and treatments, and financing. The EUROsociAL programme assists with policies that address the first two.

EUROsociAL is multisector, being divided into five priorities that are part of the EU Cohesion Policy: administration of justice, education, taxation system, employment and health. The health sector, in turn, is divided into five areas: (i) development of social protection in health, (ii) good governance in health services, systems and hospitals, (iii) health services based on quality primary care and efficient and equal access to medication, (iv) public health policies and risk control, and (v) promotion of health policies in the community for the benefit of the most vulnerable and excluded sector [ 45 ]. The project is financed by the European Commission under the coordination of Spain (Fundación Internacional y para Iberoamérica de Administración y Políticas Públicas—FIIAPP), encompassing other European countries such as Italy, Germany and France. It also has two Latin American countries within the coordinating partners, which are Brazil (Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca—ENSP/Fiocruz) and Colombia (Agencia Presidencial de Cooperación Internacional de Colombia—APC), in addition to SICA (Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana).

As with other EU projects, EUROsociAL/Salud comes from the EU view that Latin America needs knowledge transfer to improve social cohesion and public policies. Therefore, these countries participate as receivers through a template of practices (inspections, workshops, internships, training activities, technical assistance), a timeline of exchanges, a set of goals to be achieved, and EU values that must be incorporated into mechanisms of social inclusion such as universal social protection, democratic participation, equality in the enjoyment of rights and access to opportunities. Although social cohesion was a main element of the EU-LAC Strategic Partnership initiated in 1999, we would need a better assessment of how such practices and exchanges took place in Peru, Panama and Uruguay, for instance.

The second project that can be considered part of the interregional cooperation in health is COPOLAD, the EU-CELAC Cooperation Programme on Drugs Policies, initiated in 2011 with EU funding [ 13 ]. Each phase has four years, and it is currently in its third phase, with a budget of €15 million from February 2021. It has nearly the same EU and LAC partners of EUROsociAL/Salud in addition to the EMCDDA (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction), with a focus on promoting technical cooperation based on scientific evidence as well as political dialog on drug policies between Latin America, the Caribbean and the EU. As regards to objectives, we read that they “will be fully respectful of the national sovereignty of each country and will be based on the demand raised by the participating countries themselves” (COPOLAD website).

I have already made a qualitative assessment of COPOLAD elsewhere [ 60 ] and will not discuss here the criticisms we could raise about how the EU communicates the programme, in light of how practices take place and how LAC countries understand the cooperation. After more than ten years since task forces were designated for implementation, expressions such as triangular cooperation, south‒south cooperation and national sovereignty began to emerge, at least in discourse, from the EU side.

The third project, and I would say the most specific in terms of health cooperation, was the “EU-LAC Health (2011–2017): Roadmap for Cooperative Health Research”. The five-year project is cofunded with the support of the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) and was presented on 29 May 2012 by its coordinator, Carlos Segovia, Deputy Director of International Research Programmes and Institutional Relations of the Institute of Health Carlos III (Spain), at the Open Information Day for the 7th call of FP7 Health Theme, as we can see in a press release of the event available online. Among the project partners, we have ISCIII and INNOVATEC (Spain), RIMAIS (Costa Rica), COHRED (Switzerland/Mexico), DLR (Germany), FIOCRUZ (Brazil), MINCyT (Argentina), and APRE (Italy).

According to its website [ 18 ], the EU-LAC Health is a project aimed at defining a Roadmap to support cooperative Health Research. A key aspect of the project will include linking and coordinating two important policy areas: science and technology policy (research) and international development cooperation. The EU-LAC Health is to be implemented through 6 different thematic areas: State of Play Analysis, Operational Road-mapping, Roadmap Consultation, Public Presentation, Final Dissemination and Management.

In November 2012, the project launched the first newsletter with main outcomes from the project activities, which, by that time, were basically an expert workshop held in Fiocruz (Brazil) and another one called ‘Scenario Building Workshop’ held in Buenos Aires, “in order to sort possibilities for a common funding of biregional research cooperation initiatives” and to prepare for the second one, to be held in Italy in 2013 [ 19 ]. Other newsletters were published over time, always indicating future activities.

We also have a kind of evaluation published in 2018: funded by the project and authored by researchers from Spain, Italy, Germany and Brazil who have participated in all activities of the project, already in the abstract we read that “EU-LAC Health represents a successful example of biregional collaboration and the emerging networks and expertise gathered during the lifetime of the project have the potential to tackle common health challenges affecting the quality of life of citizens from the two regions and beyond” ([ 41 ]:1). Although they were not independent actors but participants of the project, we can say that these are experts working in research and national health institutions. Among the main outcomes, the first is the EU-LAC Health Strategic Roadmap [ 17 ] which, according to the authors, “the methodology used for its definition is sound, the procedures have been tested, and the areas of common interest have been demonstrated to be of interest for R&I funding agencies and researchers. Those arguments make the roadmap a useful guide for policy-makers interested in biregional R&I collaboration” (op cit:7).

The Roadmap has seven sections: Context, Vision and Mission, Objectives and Principles, Swot Analysis, Scientific Research Agenda, Governance, and Roadmap Timeline 2015–2020. The authors detail what has been done in each of the six thematic areas mentioned above, relating to the main goals previously set. Other outputs cited in the publication were a network for collaboration among scientists, policy-makers and R&I funding agencies and the establishment of a coordinating body for future EU-LAC collaboration in health R&I.

Multilateral engagement: EU-LAC support of the Oslo Group resolutions approved in the UN General Assembly (2008–2020)

The Foreign Policy and Global Health Initiative (FPGHI) was launched in NY in September 2006. In March 2007, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, France, Indonesia, Norway, Senegal, South Africa, and Thailand issued the "Oslo Ministerial Declaration—Global Health: a pressing foreign policy issue of our time" [ 27 ]. Since 2008, every year the Oslo Group, which is how the FPGHI became known, approves a resolution at the UN General Assembly (UNGA). After mapping the EU-LAC engagement, as sponsors and/or supporters, in each of the thirteen UNGA resolutions (until 2020), Footnote 6 in addition to analyzing six Ministerial Communiqués, we have three resolutions that present the highest engagement among countries of both regions:

2009, A/RES/64/108, about reinforcing the interdependence between foreign policy and global health to coordinate efforts against the H1N1 pandemic throughout local, regional and global levels;

2010, A/RES/65/95, about considering Universal Health Coverage a central factor for the social determinants of health;

2012, A/RES/67/81, about financing mechanisms for enlarging systems of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

The Oslo Declaration, by its turn, has an agenda organized around three main themes: ‘Capacity for global health security’; ‘Facing threats to global health security’; ‘Making globalization work for all’. The first theme has three specific actions: preparedness to respond to health risks and threats, control of infectious diseases, and strengthening human resources for health. The second theme has four specific actions, all related to conflicts, threats and natural disasters. The third theme has three specific actions, which are development, trade policies and measures to implement and monitor agreements, and improve governance for health. According to these findings regarding the UNGA resolutions, it is possible to say that the EU-LAC cooperation is potentially more effective within the scope of the third theme, which actions reflect the focus on development and trade.

For what we have seen until the COVID-19 pandemic, projects on interregional cooperation, such as EUROsociAL/Salud, COPOLAD and EU-LAC Health, approached different dimensions within a pattern of development through health that is part of a revisionist behavior adopted by both partners, although by different means, throughout the cooperation process. Revisionist behavior, as stated in the introduction, is likely to be seen in longstanding relations among actors with power asymmetry. It is therefore a behavior through which political coordination does not undermine respective interests, preferences, instruments and worldviews that may be different and non-negotiable. Social cohesion and health equity, technical assistance and political dialog on drug policies, and strengthening of health R&I collaboration are goals that represent the politics of cooperation, that is, the common denominators which encompass what each partner expected from the projects. Social development is indeed the premise of consensus-building between policymakers in both regions, through which they achieve significant outputs for global governance for health. In many regards, these projects reflect what is agreed upon in UNGA resolutions, especially in their social dimensions, such as the emphasis on social determinants of health and the enlargement of public systems of UHC.

Therefore, we can say that until the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU-CELAC health cooperation has characterized an approach of development through health within a two-way revisionist behavior embedded in those projects. And that, in practice, the projects were aligned with their multilateral engagement in the UN and in declarations for the occasion of EU-LAC summits over the period. Despite expected disagreements likely emerging out of their essential differences and asymmetries, both regions recognized potential issue areas in which a constructive dialog and policy-oriented outputs were reached. Foreign policy and multidimensional cooperation, embracing from local farmers to academics, have historically favored interregional governance for health. In the next section, I analyze whether and how this has changed since COVID-19.

After the COVID-19 pandemic: any changes?

The first important move occurred after the pandemic came from the EU and, as we will see, affected the CELAC through some changes in the partnership itself. By the end of 2021, in a political response to the pandemic, the European Commission and the EU High Representative have set out the Global Gateway, a new European foreign policy strategy. As regards the budget, “between 2021 and 2027, Team Europe, meaning the EU institutions and EU Member States jointly, will mobilize up to €300 billion of investments for sustainable and high-quality projects, taking into account the needs of partner countries and ensuring lasting benefits for local communities”. It is also expected that the strategy will “create opportunities for the EU Member States’ private sector to invest and remain competitive, while ensuring the highest environmental and labor standards, as well as sound financial management” (Global Gateway website) [ 15 ].

Before exposing what is at the core of EU expectations for health, it is important to say more about the Team Europe approach, as it is the group responsible for allocating the budget and sizing the implementation of the Global Gateway strategy. In the website “Team Europe approach: leadership, cooperation, resources”, we find that Team Europe consists of the European Union, EU Member States — including their implementing agencies and public development banks — as well as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). It offers a joint programming tracker with an overview on Team Europe Initiatives (TEIs) by country and region in which we see that thus far, for the LAC region, health is not yet contemplated (Team Europe Initiatives and Joint Programming Tracker website [ 29 ]) despite being one among the five key areas (digital sector, climate and energy, transport, health, education and research) selected under the Global Gateway for the EU-CELAC partnership from 2021.

Returning to EU expectations for health within the Global Gateway, we have a summary provided by the DG for International Partnerships in its website:

“Global Gateway will prioritize the security of pharmaceutical supply chains and the development of local manufacturing. Footnote 7 (…) However, health issues extend beyond the pandemic. Thus, the Global Gateway will also facilitate investment in infrastructure and the regulatory environment for the local production of medicine and medical technologies. This will help integrate fragmented markets and promote research and cross-border innovation in healthcare, helping us to overcome diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, yellow fever, tuberculosis or HIV/AIDS” (DG for International Partnerships website).

In addition to this summary, we also have an [ 16 ], which starts by saying “The first two essential priorities are: investing in the well-being of all people and reaching universal health coverage with stronger health systems. The third core priority is combatting current and future health threats, which also requires a new focus. It calls for enhanced equity in the access to vaccines and other countermeasures,for a One Health approach , Footnote 8 which tackles the complex interconnection between humanity, climate, environment and animals” [ 16 ]:6). In the report, we have an agenda leading up to 2030 with three policy priorities—“2.1. Deliver better health and well-being of people across the life course; 2.2. Strengthen health systems and advance universal health coverage; 2.3. Prevent and combat health threats, including pandemics, applying a One Health approach -, provides for twenty guiding principles to shape global health, makes concrete lines of action that operationalize those principles, and creates a new monitoring framework to assess effectiveness and impact of EU policies and funding Footnote 9 ” (op cit:8).

The EU understands itself as having a unique potential to drive international cooperation, expand partnerships and promote health sovereignty “for more resilience and open strategic autonomy supported by partners’ political commitment and responsibility” (op cit:6). Therefore, which kind of changes in EU-CELAC interregional cooperation in health pushed by the Global Gateway and EU Global Health Strategy 2022 can we expect? It seems that this is not an easy question and requires a careful analysis of the documents and speeches mobilized thus far. I propose some ideas in this regard: on the one hand, it is notable that the second policy priority (‘strengthen health systems and advance universal health coverage’) Footnote 10 recovers the Oslo Group resolutions in which the EU and CELAC have reached more consensus and support, in addition to being in line with the two main joint programmes of the past, EUROsociAL/Salud and EU-LAC Health.

On the other hand, with regard to the third policy priority ("prevent and combat health threats, including pandemics, by applying a One Health approach"), it could be interpreted as the novelty promoted by the COVID-19 pandemic, although in reality, only the mention of the ‘One Health approach’ constitutes an innovation. This can be evidenced, for instance, in the 2009 UNGA resolution approved by the Oslo Group, in which the H1N1 pandemic was the target underpinning necessity to ‘coordinate efforts to prevent and combat health threats in local, regional and global levels’. In the same way, other diseases that are long-standing health threats dealt within the EU-CELAC interregional cooperation since at least 2005, such as malaria, yellow fever, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, are also mentioned in the Global Gateway for continuing cross-border research and innovation. Therefore, at least in terms of language, of the way ideas are presented and discourses are written, I do not see a stark turnaround. Even so, can we still expect change?

Looking deeper at the EU Global Health Strategy

In the report, each policy priority is developed through guiding principles. When we zoom in on guiding principles of the second policy priority, we see what I just mentioned before: at least in the way they are stated, they remain aligned with the path of EU-CELAC interregional cooperation in health to date, characterized by a pattern of development through health. For this reason, I focus on the third policy priority to explore subsidies for us to reflect upon the following question: should we analyze this interregional partnership in health from 2022 onward in light of a revisionist behavior characterized by ‘reviewing previous disagreements’ or a reformist behavior identified by ‘setting new priorities’? To what extent could it be said that the pattern of cooperation has changed?

Having a closer look at the third priority, ‘Prevent and combat health threats, including pandemics, applying a One Health approach’, we find guiding principles 7 to 11:

GP 7: Strengthen capacities for prevention, preparedness and response and early detection of health threats globally;

GP 8: work toward a permanent global mechanism that fosters the development of and equitable access to vaccines and countermeasures for low- and middle-income countries;

GP 9: negotiate an effective legally binding pandemic agreement with a One Health approach and strengthened International Health Regulations;

GP 10: build a robust global collaborative surveillance network to better detect and act on pathogens;

GP 11: apply a comprehensive One Health approach and intensify the fight against antimicrobial resistance.

To answer the above questions, I will base myself on these guiding principles and add what we have to date: since the EU published the report, three initiatives with CELAC have been announced by the Directorate-General for International Partnerships within the framework of the EU Global Gateway. They are:

22 June 2022: “EU-Latin America and Caribbean Partnership on manufacturing vaccines, medicines and health technologies and strengthening health systems” [ 7 ];

21 March 2023: “EU – Latin America and Caribbean high-level pharmaceutical forum to promote local manufacturing”;

17 July 2023: “EU builds new partnership for improved Latin American and Caribbean health technologies with Pan American Health Organization” [ 8 ].

As we can see, all of them are placed within GP 7, which is part of seven lines of action. I reproduce such lines in the figure below.

Regarding the first initiative (‘EU-LAC Partnership on manufacturing vaccines, medicines and health technologies and strengthening health systems’), which seems to be the most robust, we read in the EU communication that it “will complement and further enhance social, economic and scientific ties between the two regions. It will boost Latin America's manufacturing capacity, foster equitable access to quality, effective, safe and affordable health products and help strengthen health resilience in the region to tackle endemic and emerging diseases, and enhance capacities to cope with noncommunicable diseases” (DG for International Partnerships website, News Communication section).

The second initiative (‘EU-LAC high-level pharmaceutical forum to promote local manufacturing’) is a development of the first. The Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen and Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton hosted in Brussels the EU-LAC High-level Forum Sharing pharmaceutical innovations under the Global Gateway [ 6 ]. Political leaders, technical experts, pharmaceutical companies, entrepreneurs, investors, and financing institutions from both regions were brought together to explore collaboration, for instance, in effective and affordable pharmaceutical innovations (DG for International Partnerships website, Conferences and Summits section).

The third initiative (‘EU builds new partnership for improved LAC health technologies with PAHO’) emerged from the EU-CELAC Summit held on 17 and 18 July 2023 Footnote 11 and was also a development of the first initiative. Ms. Urpilainen and Director of Health Systems and Services of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), Dr James Fitzgerald signed a €3,8 million agreement building a partnership to strengthen LAC access to healthcare technology. The contribution agreement supports the main objectives of the EU-LAC partnership on health, launched by Ms. von der Leyen and Mr. Sánchez in June 2022 (first initiative listed). It focuses in particular on strengthening regulatory frameworks, technology transfers and increasing manufacturing capacities. Footnote 12

After the Summit, an EU-CELAC Roadmap for 2023 to 2025 [ 14 ] indicated that a High-Level event on “Health Regulatory Frameworks” is planned for November 2023, and meetings on Health Self-sufficiency involving regulatory authorities from both regions are planned for 2024–2025. Finally, in the Declaration of the EU-CELAC Summit [ 4 ], we read on paragraph 30, page 8:

“We express our commitment to take forward the biregional partnership on local manufacturing of vaccines, medicines, and other health technologies, and strengthening health systems resilience to improve prevention, preparedness, and response to public health emergencies, in support of the CELAC Plan on Health Self-Sufficiency [see the link to access the Plan in footnote 6]. We look forward to the progress of the ongoing discussions on a new legally binding instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response in the framework of the World Health Organization, with the aim to agree it by May 2024”.

Taking these primary sources and empirical examples as references for our analysis, the research indicates that the kind of changes in EU-CELAC interregional cooperation in health reflects the dominance of EU interests. Considering the material produced from the EU Global Gateway strategy, launched after the COVID-19 pandemic, until the last EU-CELAC Summit, we can see that the main pattern of interregional cooperation moved from development through health to the current economy-driven health development – a movement clearly propelled by the EU by means of elevating health technologies and manufacturing as priorities despite knowing the enormous structural differences between both regions in this regard.

First and foremost, health technologies and manufacturing in CELAC are mainly conducted with public investment and in public institutions, while in the EU, this field is dominated by big pharma —private transnational companies, among the most profitable and richest in the world, that also count on EU subsidies (Polish Polpharma is a good example Footnote 13 ) and normative facilities. However, in cooperation with CELAC, the centralization of the involvement of the private sector and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), as well as the harmonization of the economic interests in the health sector of several EU Member States, do not seem to be easy tasks for EU foreign policy to effectively implement this change of priorities declared in the official post pandemic documents and in the projects already underway.

With regard to the question of whether this political change on the EU side indicates revisionist or reformist behavior, i.e., a review of previous divergences or an attempt to establish new priorities, a qualitative evaluation of the primary sources from a historical perspective allows me to affirm that we are witnessing a reformist behavior on the part of the EU in its interregional cooperation with CELAC in the area of health. However, it is important to remember that, at the time of writing, the first initiatives have not yet been implemented, and therefore, we still have to wait to empirically evaluate the impacts of such change. We cannot anticipate reactions, contestations or resistance, but we do have lessons learned from the path of EU-LAC partnership in health issues that add valuable insights to our analysis, especially on how the historical differences in terms of health approaches between the two regions have been negotiated. In the next section, I give some of these insights, focusing on the issue of manufacturing pharmaceuticals and health technologies.

Making sense of the EU-LAC Health Partnership within the EU Global Gateway (2021–2027)

To analyze potential points of disagreement at the implementation level of cooperation in manufacturing pharmaceuticals and health technologies, I take into consideration previous disputes involving the EU and CELAC countries located at the intersection between the regimes of health, trade and intellectual property rights (IPR). The EU-Brazil dispute over global access to medicines, which formally started in 2009 within the WTO, is illustrative. On the one hand, the EU focuses on the protection of patents within the IIPR regime and on combating counterfeit drugs, advocating that the defense of IPR and patent law are necessary conditions for investment in the research and technology of medicines conducted in developed countries, which guarantees global health by exporting ‘safe’ medicines worldwide. On the other hand, Brazil sees the EU drawing upon its bargaining power through trade and political leverage to validate its own regulation above multilateral ones at stake, such as the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health (2001), hampering the transit of generics.

Under the EU Regulation 1383/2003 and in response to complaints of patent rights owners, Dutch customs authorities systematically confiscated in transit medicines between 2008–2009 at the Rotterdam port and Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, mainly from India to Africa and Latin America [ 46 ]:25, where the author gives a complete explanation about drug confiscations in European routes), alleging counterfeit and the violation of IPR contained in the WTO TRIPS Agreement (Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, 1994). For the first time, in early December 2008, Brazil and the EU reached the peak of their divergent perspectives about the right to health vs. IPR regulated by TRIPS. The dispute broke out: on 3 February 2009, the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the WTO Ambassador Roberto Azevedo made an intervention at the WTO General Council (GC) on the seizure by Dutch authorities of a cargo of 570 kilos of losartan potassium docked in Rotterdam while in transit from India to Brazil [ 24 ].

Ambassador Azevedo set one leading point of Brazilian argumentation: the distinction between generics and counterfeit (“ The concept of generic must not be mistaken with counterfeit or pirated. Generic medicines are not substandard or illegal” ), reaffirming the irrelevance of patent law in the Netherlands, which was only the country of transit, supported by the principle of territoriality that is at the basis of the IPR regime ( “Whether or not the medicines were generic under the law of the country of transit is an irrelevant question” ). The dispute lasted until 2016, when the EC (Taxation and Customs Union) published a Commission notice in its website [ 10 ], informing that a new regulation concerning customs enforcement of IPR has replaced the EU Regulation 1383/2003, addressing the “specific concerns raised by India and Brazil on medicines in genuine transit through the EU which are covered by a patent right in the EU”. In an interview given in 2017, Celso Amorim, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil from 2003–2010, summarized the dispute: “We have a very important IP system, one of the most developed IP institutes in the developing world, which gives expertise to other countries. So no, we’re not against IP at all. However, we have to see that life is above profit, and health is above patents” [ 25 ].

This is just one illustrative case, among other disputes between the EU and counterparties such as India, African and LAC countries that are well documented in different UN stages, such as the Intergovernmental Working Group for establishing a legally binding agreement on Business and Human Rights settled within the Human Rights Council in 2014 and the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization [ 32 , 59 ]. The EU has consistently acted in the best interest of its pharma companies, and this behavior has been denounced by international NGOs such as Health Action International (2018, [ 23 ]) and Oxfam, as we can see in a press release published in April 2023 on its website under the title “EU pharma legislation ‘total hypocrisy’ while undermining health in poorer countries, campaign says” [ 28 ]. In addition, those NGOs and other researchers from the South [ 34 , 40 , 43 , 44 ] have been systematically reporting that EU trade agreements contain TRIPS + , which are basically additional measures to strengthen IPR also upon health products in detriment of health safeguards regulated by the Doha Declaration of 2001 (see the Doctors Without Borders Access Campaign to further information on EU´s use of TRIPS + in its trade agreements) [ 9 ]. Recently, we have witnessed this concern in regard to the EU-Mercosur FTA [ 38 ].

The second line of action of guiding principle 7 in the [ 16 ], as stated in Fig.  1 , is worth recalling:

“Support regional and country efforts to strengthen pharmaceutical systems and manufacturing capacity for vaccines and other medical products and technologies to increase quality, safety, equitable access, and health sovereignty. To this end, boost the ongoing Team Europe initiative on Manufacturing and Access to Vaccines, Medicines and Health Technologies in Africa and the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean manufacturing and health partnership. The EU will invest in strengthening health commodity markets and supporting end-to-end procurement and supply chain management, including transparency and monitoring, using inter alia business support networks to favor matchmaking, facilitate marketplace exchanges and dialog of industrial actors” (emphasis in the original).

Lines of action driving also guiding principle 7

In the history of EU relations with LAC countries, it is no exaggeration to say that disputes involving health, trade and IPR have been the hardest ones, very much due to the lobby of private pharmaceutical European industries – who are exactly the private actors that will be called upon to take part in manufacturing and health partnerships with CELAC. In other words, the above line of action of guiding principle 7 goes in a direction opposed to the one pharmaceutical lobby—mainly represented by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations—is used to expect and to get from the EU.

Therefore, the crucial question is ‘how will the EU operationalize the support of regional and country efforts in LAC to strengthen their pharmaceutical systems and manufacturing capacity for vaccines and other medical products and technologies without harnessing the European pharma sector´s profit and interests—which is a key sector for being the major contributor to the EU economy, as recognized in the 2020 Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe ?’ Another doubt is how the EU would support end-to-end procurement and supply chain management, including transparency and monitoring, without its pharma sector´s full cooperation? These are still open questions that must be seen empirically over the process of implementation.

The fact that Latin America has been a global player in health since the XIX century, having participated in the constitution of norms, organizations, practices and approaches as much as other countries from the North did [ 42 , 47 ], had compelled the EU to tailor cooperation toward social cohesion and research and innovation (R&I), as we have seen in the EU-funded projects implemented until 2019. Nonetheless, the history of implementation of common projects shows that they were successful despite disagreements in how both regions understand health. In the first section, I presented the pattern that guided EU-CELAC cooperation in the field of health until the COVID-19 pandemic—which I call development through health—with a view to our objective of identifying patterns of practices and what/how they have changed.

This line of reasoning can lead to further research toward positive implications for the EU’s regional health partnerships more broadly. By opening up the projects, analyzing interactions and revealing how mechanisms for accommodation and negotiation of disagreements were mobilized, this kind of research would have the potential to enhance our knowledge about how revisionist behavior is practiced in asymmetric partnerships, such as the one between the EU and sub-Saharan Africa within the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). Because each project has its own historiography, it is valuable for researchers to refine the meaning of the ‘politics of cooperation’ by uncovering how other partners construct health cooperation with the EU.

For instance, Berner-Rodoreda et.al. explain that, until 2010, in the EU Communication on its role in Global Health, the aspect of protection against threats was “led to the question of whom health security is for or even what it should entail or how ‘security’ should be defined and specified” (2019:2). Securitization of health is an approach that has been increasingly nested in the EU [ 33 ] and, because the EU is commonly afforded more financial resources in the scope of regional partnerships, its approaches and meanings on central aspects that drive cooperation are unavoidably relevant. Nonetheless, that fact does not say much about how partners react, adapt, reject, contest and interact with EU counterparts at the negotiation and implementation levels. To assess this kind of knowledge is what I meant by empirically refining our understanding about the politics of cooperation as a contribution to the literature on EU´s regional health partnerships.

In section two, I concentrated on a detailed analysis of key EU documents to understand what was in there beyond the surface of vague statements that usually announces policy priorities for a broad audience. We saw that even after the pandemic, the language used by the EU in these priorities resembled resolutions of the Oslo Group, as they represent consensus-building within the UNGA about foreign policy and global health. Therefore, looking deeper at the EU Global Health Strategy 2022, I claim that EU reformist behavior is set in specific guiding principles and lines of action of the third policy priority. This means that by prioritizing different principles and policy instruments Footnote 14 that came up from an internal revision of its own foreign policy direction after the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU did not previously negotiate what/ how should be changed in its health cooperation with CELAC. The outcome is that, this time, the changing pattern of such cooperation reflects the dominance of EU interests – a change from development through health to economy-driven health development – probably influenced by the geopolitical context that made China a relevant health partner for CELAC during the pandemic.

By an economy-driven health development, I mean the choice for a pattern of cooperation focused on strengthening the development of specific health technologies for intervention in people's bodies, which depends foremost on investment and financing of innovation, i.e., the strengthening of the IPR regime. In turn, the IPR regime is a historical node in EU-CELAC relations, mostly with regard to the health industry. Because of, in practice, it remains to be seen how the three initiatives with CELAC already announced by the DG for International Partnerships under the EU Global Gateway between June 2022 and July 2023 will be implemented, in section three, I recover some previous lessons and insights about disputes involving the EU and CELAC countries located at the intersection between health, trade and IPR regimes. I also include the voice of international NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, as well as of civil society organizations from the South. Alongside them, there are a number of research articles and reports propagated by European civil society organizations manifesting against the EU preference for trade when health is at stake [ 2 , 30 , 50 , 58 , 63 ].

The goal here was to demonstrate how hard disputes involving health, trade and IPR are precisely because of the lobby, interests and profit of European pharmaceuticals, whose collaboration is, from now on, essential for the success of EU-CELAC health cooperation. Moreover, being one of the main contributors to the EU economy, the pharma sector enjoys subsidies, incentives and normative protection at the supranational level, represented by the European Commission, its related DGs and complementary agencies. Since cooperation implies sharing knowledge and expertise to strengthen pharmaceutical systems and manufacturing capacity for vaccines and other medical products and technologies in CELAC countries, further research is necessary to follow, first, how the EU will manage to obtain private pharma sector collaboration. This is a crucial aspect with implications perhaps also to its global health strategy which, besides the Global Gateway, encompasses for instance the Horizon Europe R&I Framework initiated in June 2018 [ 21 ], in which “European industrial interests were found to dominate with regard to Global Health innovations” [ 35 ].

Despite this scenario, it has become clear that the players in both regions have learned to adapt to each other without major losses for their populations, who are presumably the main beneficiaries of cooperation. We therefore have reason to believe that they will continue to draw their own preferences from the partnership. CELAC would have much to gain in centralizing the engagement of PAHO and ECLAC on the basis of the “Regional Plan for Self-sufficiency in Health Matters”, for instance, in joint activities with the European private sector. In addition, in doing so, they already know where main disagreements are to be expected. It remains to be seen the power of an economy-driven health agenda as the new pattern to enforce EU priorities in the context of health cooperation with CELAC – this is the main factor that will define how (and not just which) competing interests and capacities will be accommodated.

In this regard, the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (SDH) states that “Together, the structural determinants and conditions of daily life constitute the social determinants of health and are responsible for a major part of health inequities between and within countries” ([ 3 ]:1). SDH offers a framework through which other common goals such as economic growth and security are achieved and entails three principles for action: “Improve the conditions of daily life”, “Tackle the inequitable distribution of power, money, and resources” and “Measure and understand the problem”. These principles might not drive the aim but rather the necessary results of global governance for health. Can the EU-CELAC health partnership, after the pandemic, continue to contribute to these outcomes by emphasizing equitable access and health sovereignty, negotiating disagreements over the means to reduce asymmetries and maintaining the will to achieve the respective priorities through cooperation and multilateralism? This is the most significant question motivating researchers and societies to observe future developments.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

For more information about EU´s other regional health partnerships see, for instance, the website of Horizon Europe where there is a list of partnerships in the area of health, beginning with the one with sub-Saharan Africa. Available in: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/european-partnerships-horizon-europe/health_en .

Such as the Commission´s strategy “Together for Health” (2008–2013) and the EU Global Health Strategy that will be scrutinized in subsequent sections of this article.

Such as the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) [ 20 ].

The official name of the Oslo Group is “Foreign Policy and Global Health Initiative”. It was launched in New York in September 2006. On March 2007, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, France, Indonesia, Norway, Senegal, South Africa and Thailand issued the "Oslo Ministerial Declaration—Global Health: a pressing foreign policy issue of our time”. Since then, every year the Oslo Group has a resolution approved at the United Nations General Assembly.

Ministerial Meeting "Latin American and Caribbean access to the experimental vaccine against COVID-19"; Videoconference "Accelerating access to COVID-19 vaccines in Latin America and the Caribbean"; Invitation to join the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation (CEPI); Virtual Ministerial Meeting on Health Affairs for the Attention and Monitoring of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America and the Caribbean; Social Communication Strategy on CELAC Social Networks; Special Communiqué on the timely monitoring of the outbreaks of the new coronavirus; Establishment of the Network of Specialists in Infectious Agents and Emerging and Reemerging Diseases. I am thankful to reviewer 2 for listing these initiatives.

UN General Assembly Resolutions Tables, available in: https://research.un.org/en/docs/ga/quick/regular/78

Alongside this strategy, another one that stands out is the 2020 Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe , which defines the EU financial contribution, co-investment from partners and pooling with other international actors [ 1 ].

A full definition of One Health is provided by OHHLEP under Tripartite and UNEP support OHHLEP's definition of "One Health" (who.int)—The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) welcome the newly formed operational definition of One Health from their advisory panel, the One Health High Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP), whose members represent a broad range of disciplines in science and policy-related sectors relevant to One Health from around the world. The four organizations are working together to mainstream One Health so that they are better prepared to prevent, predict, detect, and respond to global health threats and promote sustainable development [ 26 ].

This strategy should be read together with the first State of Health Preparedness Report, available in: https://health.ec.europa.eu/publications/state-health-preparedness-report_en .

On page eleven of the report we have a detailed description of the second priority, which is developed through guiding principles 3 to 6.

To better grasp the EU rationale for the EU-CELAC Summit, see a Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council entitled “A New Agenda for Relations between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean”, which has been issued on 7 June 2023, specially pages 12-14. Available in: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3045 [ 11 ]

The EU affirms that the focuses are fully aligned with the “Regional Plan for Self-sufficiency in Health Matters”, endorsed by CELAC in September 2021, available in: https://www.cepal.org/en/publications/47253-plan-self-sufficiency-health-matters-latin-america-and-caribbean-lines-action-and .

See “Polpharma seeks EU funding to conduct R&D projects”, available in: https://polpharma.pl/en/eu-funding/

Different principles and policy instruments such as the guiding principles 7 “strengthen capacities for prevention, preparedness and response and early detection of health threats globally” and 8 “work toward a permanent global mechanism that fosters the development of and equitable access to vaccines and countermeasures for low- and middle-income countries”, as well as the policy instrument “Team Europe initiative on manufacturing and access to vaccines and health technologies in Africa and the EU and LAC manufacturing and health partnership” stated in the second line of action, in Fig.  1 .

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Acknowledgements

The author is part of the Jean Monnet Network (JMN) “Crisis-Equity-Democracy in Europe and Latin America”— https://jeanmonnetcrisisequitydemocracy.com/ - in the context of which all the research and discussion of this paper was possible. I would like to thank the coordinator of the JMN, Professor Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann, and all the partners. I would also like to thank the students from PUC-Rio and IBEI-Barcelona who took part in the presentations of the first versions of this work.

Jean Monnet Network Crisis-Equity-Democracy for Europe and Latin America. Period: 2020–2023. Funding: European Commission (Grant Agreement/Decision 2015 – 3375/028 – 003 Project number 574785).

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Salgado, C. The place of health in the EU-CELAC interregional cooperation from 2005 to 2023: a historical, empirical and prospective analysis. Global Health 20 , 60 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-024-01059-3

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The economic impact of globalization, the social impact of globalization, the environmental impact of globalization.

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