It should be another eventful year. We can expect the United States to continue losing global influence as well as friends, and for President Donald Trump to carry on with his insular, dangerous and amateurish approach to foreign policy, that is, if Trump remains in office.  Trump’s first tweets of the year about cutting aid to the Palestinian Authority and Pakistan (the State Department soon after went ahead and suspended military aid to Islamabad) and having a “much bigger” nuclear button than Kim Jong-un’s certainly does not bode well for US diplomacy.

Domestically we can expect Trump to continue to pander to his electoral base and to pick cultural fights to divert attention from his failures or unpopular decisions. He will continue to lose support nationally and Trump’s disavowal of his former aid Steve Bannon, who was quoted in a new book by Michael Wolff describing a June 2016 meeting between Trump’s son and a group of Russians as “treasonous”, could prove very damaging to the President.  Bannon, chairman of the right-wing Breitbart News organisation, has considerable influence over Trump’s core supporters.

Will Trump be impeached in 2018? Or will he resign? I think there is more of a chance of him being persuaded to resign but Trump has proved to be a survivor, so we’ll have to see how his relations with his Republican Party develop throughout the year. However, the claim by Wolff, the author of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House that all Trump’s White House aides see him as a “child” who needs “immediate gratification” (nothing we really didn’t know) is likely to cause problems for the President. I also sincerely believe that people will seriously start to talk about Trump’s mental health in 2018. Furthermore, we can expect some fireworks when special counsel Robert Muller concludes his investigation into the 2016 US presidential election.

One thing is for sure: the whole world will be carefully watching November’s congressional elections in the US which will essentially be a referendum on Trump’s first two years in office, if the latter is still President. If this is the case I believe the Democrats will recapture both the House of Representatives and the Senate – unless, of course, there is a major geopolitical shock such as war on the Korean peninsula. If the Democrats do win, they will have a major say over domesticpolicy but Trump will continue to call the shots in foreign policy as Congress has limited powers in this area.

Dealing with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will remain a major challenge for the world in 2018.

North Korea’s nuclear programme will remain a huge threat to international peace and security in 2018. The fact that North Korea reopened a hotline to South Korea, nearly two years after it was disabled on the orders of Kim Jong-un, is encouraging, as is the possibility of North Korea sending a team to the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February. However, we can expect Pyongyang’s missile tests to continue after the Games and we shouldn’t be surprised if North Korea conducts another nuclear test sometime in 2018.

Dealing with North Korea is an extremely complex undertaking which requires the right mix of diplomacy, containment, patience, realpolitik, détente, economic pressure and, of  course, military muscle. Unfortunately, US President Trump has tended to lay too much emphasis on the latter two aspects, which is risky, and his rhetoric towards North Korea certainly hasn’t helped.

North Korea will be a major test of the Trump presidency this year, and with Pyongyang’s ability to place nuclear warheads on its long-range missiles fast approaching, Trump will have to come out with a coherent strategy to tackle this problem. I hope his advisers convince him to go for a policy of containment and to work closely with China – which will continue to adopt more of a global role in 2018 – and to forget about pre-emptive strikes.

It should be an interesting year in Europe with the eurozone expected to continue to perform well and a number of important elections. We can expect the EU to continue to raise its global profile and influence in the wake of America’s new foreign policy direction and, in particular, for France to assume more of a leadership role in the world. Bulgaria has assumed the EU presidency for the first six months of the year and has adopted ‘United We Stand Strong’ as its slogan, which suggests that a united Europe can achieve so much more together.

Austria takes over the presidency in July and all eyes will be on Vienna to see how the new coalition government, which includes the right-wing Freedom Party, will preside over the EU. I believe the Austrian presidency will go smoothly and the government in Vienna will make it a point to stress that it remains committed to the European project.

EU reform and greater integration will depend to a great extent on France and Germany working closely together. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is still negotiating a ‘grand coalition’ with the Social Democrats and will hopefully be successful. If she fails to form a government, we could either expect a CDU minority administration or new elections, both of which would not be particularly good news for Europe. A new election might even possibly see the CDU replace Merkel with a new candidate for Chancellor, although this remains a long shot.

EU reform and greater integration will depend to a great extent on France and Germany working closely together

Important elections will be held in Italy, Sweden and Hungary this year. In Italy, the polls show no one political bloc (Democratic Party, Forza Italia and 5 Star) gaining a majority of seats, which means we can expect plenty of horse trading after the poll. We can also expect immigration, corruption, job creation and the euro to be major issues in the electoral campaign, and for the ‘anti-establishment’ 5 Star movement to continue to stress that it remains in favour of Italy’s membership of the EU and the eurozone, but that it wants to reform both. Europe will be closely watching the performance of the far-right, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party in the Swedish election, which the polls show is losing support, mainly due to a stricter immigration policy by the Social Democrat-led government which has led to a large reduction of migrants.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-wing populist Fidesz party has a big lead in the polls over the other parties and is hoping to regain its two-thirds majority in Parliament, which would enable it to amend the Constitution. Sadly, the far-right Jobbik party is Fidesz’s main rival, much to the despair of the centrist pro-European parties.

Other parliamentary elections in the EU will be held in Slovenia, Latvia and Luxembourg while presidential elections will be held in the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Finland and Ireland.

Brexit and the Catalan question will remain two major challenges for Europe this year. We can expect the Brexit negotiations to be long and difficult and whether they will be concluded by the October deadline is certainly unclear. It is also possible that Theresa May’s minority government will collapse due to a rebellion by pro-EU Conservative backbenchers. That, of course, would change the whole Brexit scenario.

The last thing the EU needs during these Brexit negotiations is a crisis in Spain due to renewed pressure for Catalonia’s independence. It is still not clear who will lead the Catalan regional government – in December’s elections the pro-independence parties won a reduced majority of seats but the pro-union Citizens party won most seats and the pro-union parties together won a majority of votes. Hopefully Madrid and Barcelona will come to a compromise which will see Catalonia given more autonomy but not independence.

The question of burden-sharing in the relocation of migrants in Europe is another issue that won’t go away in 2018 and urgently needs to be resolved, as is the need for better mechanisms in place to ensure that the rule of law is not undermined in any Member State. It is useless calling the EU a ‘Union of values’ if certain members of the bloc don’t adhere to the fundamental beliefs and values of the club.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has already been in power for almost 18 years, (either as President or as Prime Minister) faces re-election this year. With the State-controlled media heavily in favour of Putin, and facing little competition, he is expected to easily win and is set to become the longest serving Russian leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Putin’s main political challenger, Alexei Navalny, who is banned from running due to a fraud conviction – which he insists was a politically-motivated charge to get him out of the way –  has called on his supporters to boycott the vote. It will be interesting to see if this has an effect on the turnout. Upon Putin’s re-election we can expect no change in Moscow’s increasingly assertive foreign policy nor any improved ties with the US.

Ukraine remains a stumbling block in improved relations between Russia and the West. The conflict in eastern Ukraine has claimed over 10,000 lives and is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. The European Union will need to increase its diplomatic initiatives in Ukraine, especially in view of Washington’s absence in the crisis, and work together with Russia in finding a solution. Brussels also needs to put pressure on Kiev to carry our much-needed reform and to fight corruption.

We can expect the last remnants of the so-called Islamic State’s territory in Syria and Iraq to be retaken but the jihadist group will continue to conduct bomb and terrorist attacks in both countries, as well as in a host of other countries all over the world, including Afghanistan, Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, Africa, Pakistan and European cities. Al-Qaeda will remain a problem, particularly in West Africa and Yemen, and the world will have to come to terms with the fact that IS might be able to exploit the situation in Libya further unless stability is restored to the North African nation. It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, will America’s freezing of military aid to Pakistan have on the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan, which most experts believe will escalate in 2018.

Although Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s position is now more secure than it has ever been – thanks to Russian intervention – large parts of the country are not under his control. The Kurds and the Syrian Democratic Forces, as well as a number of Islamist groups, control vast areas of territories which I doubt Assad will be able to take back by force. The UN-sponsored peace talks, which have been progressing extremely slowly, will have to try to find a way to arrive at a political solution, involving all parties. Countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia and the US will also have to work together to find a solution for Syria, although the Saudi-Iran rivalry and the US’s changed foreign policy outlook do not augur well for this.

Iran will need to be watched carefully this year. The country is at a delicate crossroads with a power struggle going on between hardliners and moderates, and Iranians expected economic gains as a result of the nuclear deal. While the economy has improved somewhat, few benefits have reached the population at large and people are largely fed up with the country’s adventurous foreign policy – they want development and investment at home. Hence the recent protests in the streets.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will have to perform a delicate balancing act between a hostile administration in Washington and hardliners at home.

America’s new non-nuclear sanctions, of course, as well as the uncertainty caused by Trump’s ditching of the nuclear agreement, have not helped at all. President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, is squeezed between hardliners at home and a hostile administration in Washington and has a delicate balancing act to perform. What is needed is for the international community, particularly Europe, to continue engaging with the Iranian government and urge respect for the rule of law – which is in fact what President Macron and EU foreign policy chief Federica Morgherini have done. What should not be done – as unfortunately Trump has done – is to openly criticise the Iranian government, support the protesters and try to isolate Teheran. That would only bolster the hardliners and give the impression that those protesters are agents of foreign powers.

In Saudi Arabia it will be interesting to see exactly what crown prince Mohammed bin Salman meant when he said he wanted to return the country to ‘moderate Islam’

In Saudi Arabia it will be interesting to see exactly what crown prince Mohammed bin Salman meant when he told The Guardian newspaper recently that he wanted to return the country to “moderate Islam”. In the interview, the heir to the Saudi throne said his country had been “not normal” for the past 30 years and criticised the hardline doctrines imposed in response to the Iranian revolution “which successive leaders didn’t know how to deal with”.

The Saudi-Iran rivalry is also something to watch carefully in 2018 as it potentially can have precarious consequences. Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive strategy towards Iran coupled with its overtly pro-Saudi policy only makes things riskier. Washington’s silence on the terrible situation in Yemen, for example, where indiscriminate Saudi airstrikes and a blockade of the country has led to immense suffering, is a case in point.

An international focus on Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis is definitely needed in 2018. It is inconceivable that the world stood by last year as 655,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh, an episode which the UN called a “textbook example” of ethnic cleansing. This disaster threatens the stability of the entire region and action is needed now before the situation gets out of control.

The prospects for the Middle East peace process remain bleak in 2018, especially in view of America’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which effectively ended Washington’s role as an honest broker. We had anyway not seen any US peace initiatives in the region in 2017 and we shouldn’t expect any now. The EU, rightly so, will continue to express support for a two State solution with East and West Jerusalem as the respective capital cities but will be effectively ignored by Israel.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to step down threatens to escalate the humanitarian crisis which the UN last year called the worst in the world – 1.7 million people were forced to flee from their homes due to various insurgences. Kabila failed leave office in December 2016, when his mandate expired, and last November the electoral commission announced a new election at the end of 2018, extending the President’s rule for yet another year. One hopes that international pressure, perhaps even from the Vatican, will be exerted on Kabila to immediately resign and call an election, which could hopefully usher in a much-needed period of stability.

The situation in Venezuela will deteriorate even further in 2018 as President Nicolás Maduro consolidates his grip on power and presides over almost total economic collapse. We can expect even more State control of the economy and more suppression of the Opposition and free press. A presidential election is due by late 2018, but the main Opposition parties have been banned from participating on the grounds that they did not take part in mayoral elections last year. In any case it is likely that the election will be rigged. The only hope for Venezuela is a split in the ruling party between hardliners and moderates or some sort of intervention by the military.

There will be a major test for Zimbabwe’s new President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, in 2018, as the country goes to the polls to elect a new President and Parliament. The world will be watching to see whether the country can really hold free and fair elections after the forced resignation last year of President Robert Mugabe who made a mockery of the rule of law and cheated in elections.

Other interesting developments in 2018 include Raul Castro stepping down as President in Cuba – effectively ending the Castro dynasty and presidential elections in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil – three important Latin American countries.

2018 also marks the 50th anniversary of the killing of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, two icons, and the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.