Economic diplomacy: pandemic effect

Abstract

The article analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic crisis on the foreign policy and diplomacy of states, including economic diplomacy. ED is interpreted as a multi-sided multi-faceted activity, an integral part of foreign policy aimed at protecting the national interests and economic security of the country. Given the interdepartmental nature of the ED, the presence of numerous actors and agents, not only state, but also public and business structures, political and foreign economic coordination on the part of the Foreign Ministries is of great importance, and this role of foreign policy departments is increasing during the pandemic crisis. The activity of the ED of Russia in 2020 was generally successful, among the main results: active participation of diplomats in the anti-epidemic work of the Government of the Russian Federation, including export flights, provision of emergency assistance by compatriots abroad, assistance to foreign countries; measures to promote the Russian vaccine in the world, establish its production abroad, and thus win new world markets for medicines; settlement of the pricing crisis on the world oil market with the leading role of Russia and Saudi Arabia; adjustment of double taxation agreements with a number of foreign countries, taking into account the domestic economic needs of the country; the growing experience of BRICS, this interstate association, which did not know the crisis, including its fight against epidemiological diseases, during the period of Russia’s presidency in the BRICS; further steps to deepen integration within the EAEU; Russia’s success in the eastern direction of foreign policy, in the development of trade exchanges and epidemiological cooperation with the ASEAN and APEC states. The new world crisis has become a catalyst for the convergence of ED methods with scientific and public diplomacy, with other diplomatic cultures that can be combined under the general name of civil diplomacy. Such a separation is required to protect the legacy of professional diplomacy, the popularity and use of which methods is growing significantly. ED, as an integral part of official diplomacy, is presented as a mediator between classical and civil diplomacy. It provides civil society with an example of the more rigorous, pragmatic, resultsoriented work that the current pandemic crisis requires.