Globalization

In January 2024, five politically and economically heterogeneous countries ‒ Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates ‒ joined the BRICS. The BRICS+ countries now represent around 45 percent of the world’s population and around a third of global GDP. The BRICS were originally founded as an economic alternative to the Western bloc led by the USA and the EU. The idea was to offer the countries of the Global South a counterweight to Western institutions. The current change in the geopolitical and geoeconomic framework has driven the expansion of the BRICS. And it will also play an important role in shaping the international order of tomorrow.

 Despite EU restrictions, only around one-third of pre-war exports to Russia are fully sanctioned; most trade remains unaffected or subject to numerous exemptions. While exports have decreased by 32%, imports have increased by 17% due to innovative ways to bypass trade sanctions. China is Russia’s most important alternative country of origin for products under sanction: 61 percent of all products subject to sanctions come from China. The Russian economy shows signs of recovery, driven by robust domestic demand from wartime fiscal stimulus, contributing about 10% to GDP in 2022-23. Real GDP and industrial production have grown by 2.5% and 3%, respectively, indicating recovery from the economic crisis.

Rising geopolitical tensions, increasing supply chain disruptions, and falling public support for economic openness have given new impetus to economic nationalism. Governments around the world increasingly give precedence to domestic production and geopolitical considerations over gains from trade and economic efficiency. This policy trend has important implications for the EU, both as a global trading partner and as an important arena for economic policymaking. This policy report investigates possible repercussions of policy-driven de-globalization for the European Union.

The number of migrants is continuously increasing worldwide. One in 30 people is a migrant, which amounts to 3.6 percent of the world’s population. This article presents the case of Poland, a country with 12.5 percent of its population living abroad. Many of them still have Polish citizenship and thus the right to vote in Poland. It finds that, the large-scale emigration of young and educated voters causes a negative shift in left-wing voting while there is a substantial increase in right-wing voting with higher emigration. More generally, this effect will depend on the selection of migrants and their voting preferences. Based on this, countries might also want to apply different policies to steer the wheel in either direction.

More than twenty years after the beginning of negotiations, a new window of opportunity seems to have opened for the ratification of a trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur. For Mercosur, this comes at a crucial juncture in its integration process: the future of the South American trade bloc appears to be more uncertain than ever, with member states holding diverging views on Mercosur’s objectives. Thirty years after its foundation, the original goals of Mercosur’s integration process have been only partially achieved. While there has been some success in terms of trade liberalization within Mercosur, the goals of forming a customs union and pursuing deeper integration steps remain unfulfilled. High Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers within the region, coupled with the lack of trade agreements, hinder the integration of Mercosur countries into the global economy.