THREAD with some predictions for EU politics for 2020. But first, please have a look at this thread from a year ago to see how accurate my predictions for 2019 were. Seems to me they were mostly correct (though I had expected Brexit to happen in 2019, so was wrong about that).
Let's start with the biggest crisis facing the EU: the rule of law/ autocracy crisis. I expect it will get worse in 2020. The regimes in Hungary and Poland will continue their drive to consolidate authoritarian rule, inter alia by attacking independent courts & flouting EU norms
EU leaders will continue to dither. Whether or not @EUCouncil votes on Art. 7, in the end they will not take meaningful action. I don't expect much from @vonderleyen's @EU_Commission either, since she relied on Orbán support to win & has shown no sign she'll stand up to autocrats
EU leaders will waste time creating new tools (ie, a new comprehensive Rule of Law Mechanism with annual reporting, & something on budget conditionality). But procrastinating by designing new tools will - as always - be an excuse for not using the tools EU already has.
Meanwhile situation in PL & HU will deteriorate, and attacks on rule of law will continue to spread to other member states.
Support from @EPP & autocrat enablers like @ManfredWeber was crucial to the rise of Orban, and Orban will be weaker outside EPP. But now that his regime is entrenched & he has a like minded regime in Warsaw, he can likely endure without EPP protection.
I think a Fidesz "self-deportation" from @EPP suits both sides, as @donaldtuskEPP doesn't want to split party with a divisive vote over Fidesz' membership and Orbán doesn't want the humiliation of being denounced by many on the center right (even if he wasn't eventually ejected)
OK, on to other subjects. Brexit will finally happen this year, on Jan 31, but what then? Despite @BorisJohnson's promise not to extend Brexit transition beyond 2020, it seems quite likely that ultimately he will extend it.
In the end, UK is likely to agree to significant alignment with EU rules in order to maintain some access to the single market. So UK will become a rule taker, but @BorisJohnson will simply lie about this & claim victory in negotiations & Tory press will pretend he isn't lying
Meanwhile, threats to the integrity of the UK will escalate as border down the Irish Sea @BorisJohnson agreed to creates new divide between GB & NI, and as SNP pushes for new referendum on Scotland independence and Tory gov resists demands.
But enough on Brexit. While it may plunge the UK into recession in 2020 and threatens the survival of the UK as a unified country in the long term, Brexit will continue to diminish in salience for the EU.
"A Europe that protects" will be a dominant theme in EU politics in 2020 as the EU focuses on developing its defense union (esp. in light of waning US commitment to NATO) & also in migration as EU begins building up the 10,000 stronger EU border force it agreed to last year.
However, efforts to develop EU collective security & common foreign policy will continue to be undermined by contradictory efforts taken by some national governments, particularly by those who collaborate with strategic rivals such as Russia and China.
I've written in the past about Russia's efforts to cultivate Trojan Horse regimes in the EU (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…), but in 2020 I think it will be China's intensifying efforts to divide Europe from within that will become most salient
Just to complete my predictions for 2020, let me point to two issues that have been much discussed, but that I don't think will prove very consequential: The European Green Deal and the "Conference on the Future of Europe".
The European Green Deal is mostly about (very) long term targets. While the initiative will lead to some adjustments of existing policies (ie extending ETS), I don't expect any profound policy shifts in short term.
The Conference on the Future of Europe (another one!) is set to launch in 2020 and to run for 2 years. The Forum may produce some useful ideas for policy reforms, but I don't see any prospect of Treaty change in near term.
In other words, 2020 will be another year of muddling through. The EU has survived the 'perfect storm' of intersecting crises (including Brexit, migration crisis & eurozone crisis) that plagued it in the mid-2010s, but it continues to face an insidious autocracy crisis.
The failure of the EU to stand up to authoritarian member states continues to erode the very foundations of the EU as a union based on the rule of law. Orban's hybrid authoritarian regime is safely entrenched & Kaczynski & others are following his playbook.
In 2020 it will become increasingly clear that the greatest danger to the EU is not that more members will exit, but that autocrats will hollow out the EU from within, flouting its laws, infiltrating its institutions & making a mockery of its professed values. END.
