The passing year was by far one of the most turbulent one in international politics. While millions of people around the world are busy with buying Christmas gifts, making plans for the New Year`s Eve, politicians are speeding up their deals which shall be closed by the year-end.
One of these examples is the amendment of the U.S. Tax Bill – a massive legal reform, which this country did not see for a long time. As it usually goes, there are critics and supporters of this reform. Both sides agree that big corporations will benefit from this, while opponents say that smaller businesses and private individuals might suffer heavier tax burden. This bill formed a part of the president Trump`s promise to support local producers and stop the leak of the capital from the country.
Another controversial news came after the announcement of the U.S. State Department where it is proposed to provide the Ukrainian army with weapons to support its territorial integrity and battle more efficiently the separatists. It has been already 3 years, since the war broke out in the Eastern Ukraine, however until now the army of Mr.Poroshenko was not able to stabilize and take over the control in this region. Such support from the American partners could sparkle a new stage of the proxy war between the U.S. and Russia. Now it is up to the Senate to approve this sale of weapons and the development of relations between these two states will show whether Ukrainians will get the U.S. arms or not.
In the meantime, Russia made some steps forward to build up a new dialogue with its western partners. A partial withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria, meeting of the ministry for foreign affairs Sergey Lavrov with his British counterpart Boris Johnson can be seen as positive, while both events raised more questions rather than provided with answers. It is also worth to mention the recent statement of Vladimir Putin, who thanked Donald Trump and CIA for assisting the Russian special forces in prevention of a terroristic attack in Saint-Petersburg. Those events will not solve the ongoing diplomatic crisis (especially because the EU has recently prolonged by another 6 months the sanctions against the Russian state and individuals), but with a political will an exit can be found from this situation.
Recently we reported about the U.S.` s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This week`s picture changed entirely, because during the UN General Assembly last Thursday 128 UN members voted in favour of two-states solution, while U.S. together with Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, Guatemala and Honduras took a stance that Jerusalem is solely the capital of Israel. Regardless this vote, clashes between Palestinians and Israeli military continued this week as well and this unrest doesn`t seem to be ending soon.
Finally, another legacy of this year is – Catalonia. Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy several weeks ago called for the elections to form a new Catalan government after the previous one initiated a referendum, where citizens voted in favour of independence. Mr. Rajoy hoped that without its leader-in exile Carles Puigdemont pro-independence movement will not win these elections. However the plan didn`t work out and the pro-independence coalition will have a majority in the new government. After this, Carles Puigdemont (who will get arrested once he enters into Spain) offered to meet with Mariano Rajoy. Spanish Prime Minister rejected this suggestion, bringing even more uncertainty in the negotiations.
What the upcoming year bring – is unknown, but hopefully it will be more peaceful than 2017.
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