With Angela Merkel stepping down after 15 years, the CDU will get a new leader, and Germany will get a new government in 2021. The only certainty seems that the Green Party will be part of it as popular concerns about climate change rise.

After a year of unrest in the CIS, 2021 may be similar. The calm and pragmatism with which Russia has reacted to the instability across the former Soviet republics may not last should the new US administration take more of an interest in events.

2021 sees the United Kingdom fully outside the EU’s structures. Disruption at border points will be short-lived, but questions about what kind of business destination the UK wants to be will persist, and businesses will have to put up with yet another year of political and regulatory tumult.