Ukrainian Institute for the Future -

Section of Nadiia Koval, expert on international politics in the analytical forecast “2018: Challenges and Opportunities”

2017 became a real testing year for the European Union. Although, there is still no final answer to the question of where exactly the EU should move, the apocalyptic scenarios of 2017 are gradually being replaced by restrained optimism and a more active search for a mode of future existence in 2018. Not only the leaders of EU institutions – Jean-Claude Juncker or Donald Tusk – are trying to contribute to the conceptualization of the EU future. Even the leaders of some states, in the first place – the active French President Emmanuel Macron, are beginning to take on not the attire of the biggest Euro-skeptics, as it was possible to observe in previous years, but the crowns of the biggest Euro-optimists. It is too early to say that the European Union has already overcome all the crises and disagreements, but it is clearly more optimistic about 2018 than it was about 2017.