2020, a Good Year for Europe?

In this first European column written in 2021 (the January-February issue having hit the newsstands in late December, the previous one went to press in late November), Jean-François Drevet offers his assessment of what the year 2020 brought for the European Union. Though it was a year marked by the Covid-19 crisis and Brexit, paradoxically the EU did see some advances. Drevet’s column details these in four main areas: the Economic Recovery Plan, the negotiations on the UK’s exit from the EU, the management of migration issues, and security policy. On the first two, the Union was able, most encouragingly, to present a strong, determined face. By contrast, progress on the last two was more laboured, though these are areas not to be neglected if the EU’s image on the global stage is to be burnished and its position strengthened.