The Middle East looks as if it could flare up at any moment. Iran and Israel are now face-to-face for the first time[1]. The Turkish regime is hardening and now troubling everyone. Syria keeps offering a peace that Westerners refuse to ratify as long as their share of the victory (and of the cake) is […]
As we have seen at the Davos Forum – and more generally in the recent developments over international relations – two models compete on the transatlantic stage, especially with regards to trade. On the one hand, a return to a form of national protectionism in a unilateral approach and on the other hand, a liberal […]
A trade in goods without obstacles An abandonment of this regulation and an emancipation of the Brussels’ tutelage still remain largely probable, because although a trade partnership following Brexit goes without saying, it is far from guaranteed that it will cover financial services as well. The speech on 2nd March has definitely clarified a point […]
The world’s biggest oil importer, China is preparing to launch gold-backed Yuan-denominated oil futures, possibly creating the most important Asian benchmark in the oil sector, allowing oil exporters to switch from US dollar-denominated assets by transactions in Yuan[1]. To make the Yuan-denominated contracts more attractive, China plans to have the Yuan fully convertible into gold […]
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is supposed to guarantee food independence and food quality for all Europeans, has been in crisis for many years without the citizens seeing any simple and coherent project appearing on the horizon of their common alimentary future.[1] The issues are quite obvious however: European arable lands must produce food […]
For the past two years, we have been witnessing the meticulous dismantling of the world order that has prevailed since 1945. Unable to adapt to new realities, this world order began to break up in 2001. However, in the last two years, the national units that make up this international system have made a decided […]
The world is on the brink of a wave of unprecedented development which is poised to sweep over the Middle East, Africa, India, Southeast Asia, the United States and the planet as a whole. The foundations on which this new world will be built are becoming clearer and clearer: A globalised electric grid, networks of […]
Cryptocurrencies lie at the centre of many of the questions being asked by individuals, companies and market authorities, and therefore by nation states. Their position within the economic environment is becoming more and more important for several related reasons: The large investments made by those people who consider cryptocurrencies safe havens or speculative tools The […]
Apprehension goes hand-in-hand with financial matters. Last April, the alarmist IMF announcements predicted a huge crisis by 2020 linked to the level of global debt that ten years of ‘crisis management’ have not brought under control. Rather, US public debt has doubled in absolute terms (from $10,000 billion to $20,000 billion), the EU’s debt has […]
Three times a year, the GEAB offers its readers a selection of ‘weak signals’ consisting of brief alerts in a variety of sectors (environment, finance, technology, geopolitics, etc.), revealing profound changes which together offer an ‘impressionist’ picture of the future. Here is our latest selection… The White Rhinoceros Its sad disappearance has come at a […]
In view of Narendra Modi’s very probable re-election in 2019, it is time to take stock of the Indian Prime Minister’s first term; a somewhat mixed balance sheet, both economically and politically. The partial failure of the demonetisation scheme, the numerous SME bankruptcies, the prospect of a rural exodus of nearly 600 million people over […]
So far, the media and political analysts have been unanimous: Brexit represents an uncertain and dangerous future only for the UK. Our readers know that we have always been more circumspect about this. Now that the first phase of negotiations has been completed (at the end of last year) and the second phase is about […]
Brexit seemed to have opened up the long-awaited project of redefining the functioning and objectives of the European machine. But today Brussels prefers to boast about the UK’s difficulties, and, thinking of itself as unavoidable, it is undertaking to unearth all its bottom drawer projects. Hence, over the heads of the citizens, a whole bunch of […]
To preface our up & down trends presented in this issue, here are the orientations which we consider structuring for 2018. This panorama, combined with the 33 up & down trends, presents a vision of the landscape we see for this year. In our latest bulletin, we took record of the end of the “global […]
More than three years after the Ukraine-related Euro-Russian catastrophe, there is no hope of an end to this crisis. On the contrary, the tension inexorably keeps climbing: Donbass still at war, annexation of Crimea by Russia not recognised by the international community,… the eyes are now turning to the Baltic Sea where demonstrations of military […]
This anticipation is not very original but it must nevertheless be faced with all the lucidity required. It is hardly a hypothesis, but rather a certainty: the allied European far rights will constitute the most consistent and therefore powerful parliamentary group in the next European Parliament, whatever their results in the previous national elections. What […]