10 forecasts for the political year 2020

Working in the private sector and flirting with the academic environment, I am pleased to be able to predict on the record from Brussels the top 10 topics for the political year 2020꞉

1. Great Britain is leaving the European Union and will approach the United States of America politically and economically, to gradually consolidate the new global pole of power "USA-UK";

2. The media attention will focus more on Scotland and the work of Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon to take out the country from the United Kingdom. The 2013 debate is back, but the context of the independence referendum is totally different;

3. The European Union will launch the new industrial policy based on a balance between the consolidation of European industrial champions and the internationalization of SMEs. Germany will have a hard word to say in relation to this subject;

4. The Green Deal will also become a tool to block products from China if they do not have adequate environmental standards;

5. French President Macron will increasingly lose electoral capital in France, asking himself if he will enter the second round of the 2022 presidential elections;

6. Africa will become a major topic at EU level, just as in the early 2000s there were talks of the great enlargement of the EU. Of course, there is no question about African countries to join the EU, but it is just a repositioning of European interests in the African context;

7. Artificial intelligence becomes the coolest subject at European level, but the EU still has problems with their effective sectoral approach (industry, health, education, media, etc);

8. The European defense will develop rapidly on a "complementary to NATO" strategy;

9. The American continent is going through elections and - my opinion, although many do not want it - we will have the re-election of the current president;

10. The Party of European Socialists will change its leader at the 2020 congress and start building again for the 2024 European elections. The last left president of the European Commission ended his term in 2004.

Dan LUCA / Brussels