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Even strongest countries couldn’t cope with pandemic alone, expert says

He noted that integration involves institutions that assume some of the functions of those they unite which expands opportunities for the participants

MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. The pandemic of the coronavirus infection has revealed that resources of even the strongest states were limited. This opinion was voiced by research director of the Valdai international discussion club Fyodor Lukyanov at "The Pandemic and Integration: Threat or Stimulus to Development?" discussion at the Gaidar Forum on Friday.

"The pandemic, of course, demonstrated the limitations of capabilities even of the strongest countries. We saw this, especially as exemplified by the United States," he said.

The expert pointed out that due to the integration problems revealed by the pandemic, the world enters a period when all nations will be interested in joining efforts on each specific issue and only with those they consider useful. "This concerns politics. We see that universal schemes that [people] got accustomed to over many years of globalization do not work, countries attempt to group together somehow in order to implement their interests. I think that the same is true regarding integration unions which cannot claim that now they are capable of solving all problems while [they can resolve] particular issues with particular participants, without a doubt," the expert added.

He noted that integration involves institutions that assume some of the functions of those they unite which expands opportunities for the participants. However, in actual practice the pandemic emphasized "a very unpleasant thing: all of this works more or less if a crisis situation is moderate." "When a total emergency situation happened like it was in the spring <…> when in addition to the actual problem everybody was shocked and alarmed, in this situation the natural visceral desire is to rely on things you are sure of," the expert stressed.

The spring experience, in his opinion, demonstrated that the hope that these institutions will allow to overcome the emergency situation was misplaced both at global and regional levels because the world was not ready for the new situation.