MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/. Middle-class incomes in the EU will continue to decline, and social benefits will be cut, with scattered protests converging into a broad movement, predicted Nikolay Gaponenko, associate professor with the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
"The decline in real disposable income of the middle class will continue, and social benefits - pensions, free education, and healthcare - will be steadily cut under pressure from the need to finance defense," the economist stated in his report "Strategic Forecast - Europe on the Brink of Crisis: The New Reality 2026-2030." The copy of the report was obtained by TASS.
According to the expert's forecast, protests by farmers, transport workers, and civil servants will transform from sporadic into a permanent background of public life in European elite countries by 2030.
"They will coalesce into broad movements against the 'war at any cost' policy and declining living standards. In 2024, railway workers in Germany, farmers across Europe, pilots, doctors, and teachers all went on strike. Their slogan was the same: protect incomes from inflation," Gaponenko noted, adding that by 2026, these disparate protests will merge into a unified movement.
According to the expert, there is a high probability of labor legalization for millions of illegal migrants. This will occur under pressure from businesses in need of cheap labor and will provoke an explosive rise in the popularity of far-right parties, which will directly accuse Brussels and national governments of "demographic replacement," the report states.