the year in which a war in Europe reverberated throughout the world

The writer, journalist and philosopher (among many other professions) Eugenio d’Ors said: “Between two explanations, choose the clearest one; between two ways, the simplest; between two expressions, the shorter”. We like this sentence because it sums up very well what we have tried to do every day in The Conversation from the Politics and Society section throughout 2022.

There is no month of December that we do not look back and be surprised by the amount of news that has occurred that year, but 2022 has really been a succession of events of great importance that have battered the world, and also Spain, without leaving us a single moment to catch our breath, to recover, to process the enormous change we were experiencing.

The Russian invasion of the Ukraine began on February 24. The world witnessed a new war, this time in the very heart of Europe. The role of the EU was going to be fundamental and we were attentive to all the movements that were taking place around us.

We were trying to offer all perspectives on a conflict when, in the middle of April, the Bucha massacre left the entire world in shock. It was not possible that Russia had used the “anything goes” killing more than 300 people in the Ukrainian city.

More than 100 articles about Ukraine

The world tried to recover from one of the greatest atrocities it has experienced in recent years and meanwhile since The Conversation we continue to call attention to the war from all possible prisms. Throughout the year we have published close to 100 articles on Ukraine and the consequences of the invasion, and the truth is that this is a sign that the conflict has not let up.

Precisely in the middle of a war provoked by Russia, the last (and most popular) president of the USSR, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, died in August at the age of 91. He has not been the only historical figure who has left us in 2022. On September 8, Queen Elizabeth II of England died after 70 years of reign, leaving the throne to her son Carlos III.

The death of Elizabeth II left in shock to a country that, although it expected her at any moment due to her advanced age –96 years–, did not seem to be ready yet to see her leave. Much more, in a year than for the United Kingdom, to paraphrase her own queen, yes she was horrible: in July its hitherto Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned. In October, his successor, Liz Truss, did it after 44 days in office. Rishi Sunak is the new president of the United Kingdom since last October 25.

The summit that revitalized the alliance

Spain received the visit of NATO member countries this year. Madrid strongly shielded itself from the visit of the Heads of State and Government of 30 member countries. That would go down in history as the summit that would transform and revitalize the alliance and that focused on these six axes.

This has been a year full of electoral events in Spain (Andalusia and Castilla y León, with the triumph of the right and the pact with the extreme right, respectively), in Europe and also in Latin America.

Elections were held in Portugal on the last Sunday of January. António Costa obtained a resounding victory by obtaining 117 deputies out of the 230 that the Assembly of the Republic has. In April it was the turn of France and in September what everyone expected happened, but many did not want: the extreme right triumphed in Italy at the hands of Giorgia Meloni. The serpent of right-wing radicalism continued to crawl freely through Europe since Orbán’s re-election in Hungary, passing through the exploit of the Swedish Democrats (more than 20%, the second party in the country) or the rise of Vox in Spain. Yes, because the elections in Sweden in September also promoted the extreme right.

Movements in Latin America

Latin America has experienced a year of movements, upheavals and elections with more or less expected results. The landing of Gustavo Petro in the presidency of Colombia brought leftist airs to the country. “It is impossible not to see Petro’s coming to power as one more of the eternal chess moves that is played at the regional level between governments that recognize themselves as left or right,” said Sergio Ernesto García Rendón in this article. The return of the left to the region had become more than evident with the triumph of Gabriel Boric in the Chilean elections in 2021 and was consolidated with the victory of Lula da Silva in the Brazilian elections and the fall (although not in a tailspin) of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro.

The year ends in Latin America with a convulsed Peru and with twenty deaths to date due to the protests after its former president Pedro Castillo carried out a self-coup, ended up in prison and Dina Boluarte was sworn in as the first president in the history of the country. Peru is currently open in the flesh with protests in every corner, roads blocked and thousands of tourists unable to leave the country. Many ask that Castillo be released from prison and others do not want Boluarte in the government.

Spain in full legal crisis

With the move to 2023, Spain leaves behind a particularly tough year in the judicial field. The blockade of the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary by the Popular Party continues, a democratic anomaly denounced even by the European institutions.

As a consequence of this blockade, the forced renewal of four members of the Constitutional Court in June is also stuck. The conservative block of the General Council of the Judiciary does not elect the two magistrates of the Constitutional Court that correspond to it, nor does it approve the two magistrates chosen by the Government.

In this context, an unprecedented institutional crisis has occurred in Spanish democracy, such as the interference of the Constitutional Court on the Legislative power.

The year 2022 has ended with the controversial World Cup in Qatar in which the joy of football was not able to hide the serious violation of human rights that the country continuously exercises, nor the deaths that occurred during the construction of stadiums and venues of this sports championship. And so we revealed it in several articles.

Our maxim is to always choose the clearest explanation, the simplest form and the shortest expression to tell what is happening in the world in the field of politics and society. Being able to share it with our readers has been, once again, the best way to do journalism.

Lola Delgado, Politics and Society, The Conversation

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.