The Main Developments in the European Union in 2016

• 01.07.2017, 12:37
•  Europe,  World,  Info

2016 brought some shocking developments for the European Union, for example, Brexit, the migration crisis, right-wing extremists promotion, etc. "Armedia" IAA summarized EU's most important events and developments of 2016.

The first and the most unprecedented one was Great Britain’s leaving EU after the June controversial referendum (51.9% voted in favor of Brexit, while 48.1% against). The referendum was initiated by the former Prime Minister, Conservative David Cameron and showed the desire of more than half of the British population to come out of the European family, which, of course, was a big shock for the EU.

In addition to economic and financial problems, which occurred immediately after the referendum, there were also some political consequences, when other member states also tried to initiate such referendums. The Brexit thus caused similar sentiments in other EU countries, especially the most Eurosceptic ones.

This in turn led to another important developments in the EU, "the right" promotion, in particular. Nationalist right-wing political movements won one after another in parliamentary, presidential and regional elections.

The extremist politicians got more and more popularity in Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Sweden, France, Italy, Greece and other EU countries.

The main reason for this trend in Europe is first of all the migration crisis, which also had its developments in 2016. Although the peak of the refugee influx was the summer of 2015, this year also the large number of migrants from both Africa and the Middle East continued to penetrate to Europe.

As a result, the EU signed a controversial agreement with Turkey - migrant deal. But the agreement, to put it mildly, did not succeed, and Turkey took the path of blackmailing, which deteriorated EU-Turkey relations. At the end, the situation got so tense that it was declared Turkey may be deprived of its possible membership perspective.

Instead, in 2016 the visa cancellation process was finally approved for Ukraine and Georgia, and from the next year the citizens of these countries will be able to enter EU territory without a visa, which, by the way, can become a reality for Armenia as well in the nearest future.

It was also a year of positive developments in the EU since around 3 million jobs have been created and employment has risen, pushing back poverty.  The number of Europeans having work was the highest ever estimated, reaching 232 million. And the share of the EU population at risk of poverty or social exclusion (23.7 %) is the lowest in five years.

However, 8.6% of the Europeans are unemployed, which still remains a major concern.