Building off of the success of summer 2016's surprise Brexit victory, EuroRealist movements in Central & Eastern Europe solidified their support at home and began to influence affairs beyond their borders in Western Europe. This most notably took the form of Italy unprecedentedly pioneering a populist coalition between left-wing and right-wing parties earlier this year, showing that it's indeed possible to do what had hitherto been regarded as politically impossible.
Concurrent with this, the Polish-led "Three Seas Initiative" continues to develop into an increasingly potent integrational force bringing together regional investors alongside Western European and Chinese ones to position Central & Eastern Europe as an emerging epicenter of economic growth in the continent. This is occurring in parallel with the US and NATO shifting their attention to this strategic space that's historically been regarded by some as a so-called "cordon sanitaire" between Germany and Russia. About that, those two Great Powers are still pushing ahead with their Nord Stream II pipeline despite heavy opposition from Poland and the US.
Where Warsaw and Washington have thus far failed to stop that project, they've had comparatively better success with keeping Ukraine within the sphere of NATO influence, and Poroshenko's recent provocation in the Kerch Strait dangerously hints that those two and others will continue prodding him into carrying out similar stunts in the coming year. The country's election on 31 March might end in his defeat unless he scares the populace into thinking that he's the only person capable of "defending" Ukrainians from so-called "Russian aggression", so there's no telling how far he might go in pursuit of this.
On top of all of this, observers shouldn't forget what happened in the Balkans this past year either. The Republic of Macedonia signed a controversial "name agreement" with Greece that failed to reach the minimum threshold for support in a national referendum on the issue but which is nevertheless still being implemented by their Color Revolution government. In addition, the NATO-occupied Serbian Province of Kosovo and Metohija violated its own so-called "constitution" by decreeing the creation of a "national army", throwing its incipient peace talks with Belgrade into jeopardy. While all eyes on are the rest of Europe, it might just be the Balkans that bring 2019's biggest surprises.
Andrew Korybko is joined by Joaquin Flores, Chief Editor of Fort Russ News and Director of the Center for Syncretic Studies.
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