Climate change is a growing catalyst of security risks globally. In Europe, exceptional heat, wildfires and other extreme weather events have prompted evacuations, disrupted overland and water transport, and cut production in industries like agriculture and energy, adding burden on still-recovering global supply chains. Environmental activists will probably try to use this to mobilise protests, including against fossil fuel-reliant businesses. And governments will probably struggle to balance the competing demands of cutting emissions and using fossil fuels to keep energy prices low during the current crisis.

The way the EU supported member states to face global crises, from the pandemic to the Ukraine war, has led public support of membership to surge and prompted populist parties to soften their anti-EU stances. But this is unlikely to last. The European Commission’s powers to freeze authorised funds are limited, meaning that populist parties – particularly in Hungary, Italy and Poland – are likely to resume strategies of blaming EU institutions for domestic problems. Growing divisions and dysfunctionality within the EU are likely to follow.

A revival of right-wing populism in Europe is likely to have broad strategic ramifications, from left-wing activism to the posture of the West towards Russia. Right-wing successes in Bulgaria, France, Italy and Sweden in 2022 show how the right has capitalised on public grievances over the economic impact of the pandemic and the Ukraine war. This will probably galvanise far-left groups into protests and small-scale attacks. Right-wing presence in European parliaments will potentially also probably erode support of the West’s stance on the Ukraine conflict.

The broken relationship between Russia and the West, and NATO’s regained importance since the invasion of Ukraine, will likely shape European politics in the coming years. NATO’s expansion in the Baltic will probably encourage Russian shows of force with naval drills and airspace incursions in neighbouring countries. The invasion has prompted European allies to increase their defence budgets, but as Ukraine recedes from media attention, we anticipate that most governments will be under growing public scrutiny for increasing military expenditure with recessions looming.