ENERGY, INFLATION AND IMMIGRATION

Mak­ing pre­dic­tions about pol­i­tics is risky, but we can iden­tify three el­e­ments that will af­fect all of Eu­rope in 2023. Two of them are largely the re­sult of the war be­tween Rus­sia and Ukraine: ris­ing en­ergy prices and in­fla­tion. Rus­sia has lim­ited the en­ergy sup­ply to Eu­rope to exert pres­sure and this is likely to con­tinue. This in turn causes en­ergy prices to climb and they will re­main high all year. Mean­while, in­fla­tion ran ram­pant in 2022 and reached dou­ble dig­its. It is not ex­pected to con­tinue at this rate in 2023, but nor will it fall dra­mat­i­cally. High en­ergy prices and in­fla­tion means gov­ern­ments will have to find ways to mit­i­gate their ef­fects, al­though there is no con­sen­sus on how to do that. Nor is there any when it comes to ad­dress­ing the third el­e­ment that will af­fect all of Eu­rope: im­mi­gra­tion. Peo­ple will con­tinue to come to Eu­rope, es­pe­cially from Africa, but also from Asia and Latin Amer­ica, and the de­bate on how to deal with this will re­main on the po­lit­i­cal agenda.

There will be no Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment elec­tions in 2023, sav­ing the EU from the va­garies of the bal­lot box after a scan­dal of cor­rup­tion and il­le­git­i­mate for­eign in­ter­fer­ence that has helped to fur­ther dis­credit Eu­ro­pean in­sti­tu­tions. No doubt dur­ing 2023 we will see grand state­ments and pro­pos­als to reg­u­late the ac­tiv­ity of MEPs and in­crease trans­parency, but it will do lit­tle to im­prove the EU’s image in the eyes of a large part of the pop­u­la­tion.

Turn­ing to in­di­vid­ual states, a high­light of the year in the UK will be the coro­na­tion of King Charles III. Yet the spec­tac­u­lar dis­play of tra­di­tion will not cover up the ten­sions in the coun­try, and a rise in so­cial con­flict is ex­pected, with more strikes than last year. The new PM, Rishi Sunak, has aban­doned his pre­de­ces­sor’s plan to cut pub­lic aid and ben­e­fits, but it re­mains to be seen if he can bring sta­bil­ity after five prime min­is­ters in six years. In the north, the Scot­tish gov­ern­ment will have to re­cover from the Supreme Court rul­ing that a new in­de­pen­dence ref­er­en­dum will re­quire ap­proval by the UK par­lia­ment. First min­is­ter, Nicola Stur­geon, will be hop­ing Labour wins the next elec­tion and will need the SNP to gov­ern, pro­vid­ing a chance to ne­go­ti­ate a sec­ond ref­er­en­dum.

Italy has just had elec­tions, which re­sulted in a right-wing gov­ern­ment headed by Geor­gia Mel­oni. She is likely to pur­sue a prag­matic pol­icy in 2023 and any clashes with the EU will come over im­mi­gra­tion. An­other thing will be whether the sta­bil­ity of the gov­ern­ment based on a coali­tion of three right-wing par­ties will last. In the past 30 years, the av­er­age du­ra­tion of Ital­ian gov­ern­ments has not ex­ceeded 20 months.

French pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron also won an elec­tion last year, al­beit with less sup­port than in 2017. A quiet year is ex­pected in French pol­i­tics, but moves will be made to see who will emerge as the can­di­date for Macron’s party in the next pres­i­den­tial elec­tions.

In Ger­many, the coali­tion gov­ern­ment be­tween so­cial­ists, greens and lib­er­als will con­tinue and the sharp rise in mil­i­tary spend­ing in re­sponse to the Russ­ian in­va­sion has not caused much ten­sion be­tween the gov­ern­ing par­ties. Yet we will have to keep an eye on far-right para­mil­i­tary groups, some of which have con­nec­tions to the army.

On Eu­rope’s out­skirts, Turkey will be the pro­tag­o­nist in 2023. In June there will be pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, with some un­cer­tainty about the pos­si­ble re­sult. The con­di­tions under which the vote is held will say a lot about the level of democ­racy in Turkey. In the run-up to the elec­tion, Pres­i­dent Er­do­gan will likely harden his po­si­tion in some of the con­flicts he has open, such as the one with Greece (where there will also be elec­tions, and there­fore a chance for the con­flict to es­ca­late). There are also the talks with Swe­den and Fin­land to be­come mem­bers of NATO. Turkey is block­ing these be­cause it says they are havens for Kur­dish ac­tivists and politi­cians. Turkey also cel­e­brates the cen­te­nary of the procla­ma­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Turkey in Oc­to­ber.

Fi­nally, 2023 could be his­toric for An­dorra, which will sign an as­so­ci­a­tion agree­ment with the EU, bring­ing it closer to the com­mon mar­ket and the po­lit­i­cal stan­dards of its neigh­bours.

IN­TER­NA­TIONAL