After two years of pandemic and close to a year of war in Ukraine, the world’s economy struggles to find its way back to growth. Supply chains remain affected by the zero-Covid policy in China. Many commodities (food, raw materials, and fossil fuels) are suffering from erratic prices all around the world due to major downward shifts in supply that are linked to the new isolation of Russia. Public and private debt levels have never been as high as today both in emerging and developed economies. Moreover, as part of their mandate, central banks are tightening monetary policy aggressively to bring inflation down. How will the various policy responses to these multiple shocks affect the world’s growth trajectory in the long-term? Is the worse still to come with global growth projected by the IMF to fall form 3,2% in 2022 to 2,7% in 2023? Are financial stability risks overrunning economic risks?a

With the end of fossil fuel deliveries from Russia to the EU, the geopolitics of energy has been totally reshaped almost overnight. All European countries, starting with Germany, are looking for alternatives to Russian gas and oil in Norway, North Africa, North America, or the Middle East, among others. On top of this, the geopolitics of energy has also been affected by the war in Ukraine, as the dependence of the world to fossil fuels has been brought to a new light, with skyrocketing fossil fuel prices in Europe but also beyond.

Should we expect the Russian energy supply disruption to eventually contribute positively to the energy transition necessary to tackle climate change, or should we instead assume it will delay the necessary transition effort – particularly jeopardizing certain fragile regions of the world? Do we have an opportunity here to skirt catastrophes related to reaching temperature tipping points that could lead to unmanageable and unstoppable climate change? How will Europe and the rest of the world position strategically in this context? Will the Global South claim funding from the Global North on top of levels agreed to in the 2015 Paris Accords?

The economic consequences of the war – beyond energetic ones – remain very problematic for both belligerents and third countries from around the world, especially those who depend on Ukrainian agricultural resources to feed their population. What should be done to compensate for the loss of these resources? Should for example international organizations step in to organize commodity exports?

The question of economic reconstruction more broadly is already on the table: who should pay to rebuild the destroyed public infrastructures, to help Ukrainian public finances and bring Ukraine back on the path of growth? How should an internationally funded and supported plan be rolled out? Since the conflict is not over, how risky is the Ukrainian reconstruction effort in the next months?

2022 has been an important year for the European project. After two years of pandemic, which helped move forward European integration (NextGenerationEU Plan, Health Union, etc.), the EU faces new challenges with the war in Ukraine. The conflict incentivized EU countries to find a common solution to Russian energy disruption and to the macroeconomic depressing effects of the war. It also created a renewed need to unite European countries and surrounding ones to further isolate Russia in international relations. Hence, what are the next steps? Can the European Union continue to pursue further integration? Are we stuck on the fiscal side? Can we create new ways to integrate? Is a reform of EU treaties necessary to move on?

In August, French President Emmanuel Macron declared “the end of abundance, the end of carelessness, and the end of obviousness.” According to him resources will durably get scarcer, States will have increasingly less financial spaces to compensate for systemic shocks, and liberal democracy will no longer be the model all countries aspire to become. Is this the world we are moving towards? Can we expect durable tensions regarding commodity supplies (fossil fuels, raw materials, etc.)? What is the role of public authorities in this context? Can we do better with fewer resources? Or is growth condemned to inexorably decline?

Cross-border payments are inefficient and costly. Nevertheless, many innovations have recently arisen in the context of the technological disruption in digital finance. Multiple projects have been launched, both by the public sector and by the private sector. However, the specificity of cross-border activities, i.e., the need to guarantee as much as possible interoperability between otherwise national regulations and payment systems, could justify that public authorities finally build a brand-new infrastructure which could be seen a global public good. Is it desirable? What are the private alternatives? Are public- private partnerships better suited in that context?