If you want to know the future just ask FedEE. In news reports back in 2000 we told members about the dangers of Al-Qaeda and I personally would not fly anywhere from January of 2001, even though most people i talked to about it thought I was crazy to be so cautious. I did not know which high profile city would be affected by a plane crashing into a high building, but that was the obvious spectacular proxied next step in the post-cold war void (even conspiracy theories are sometimes true) and my favoured shortlist was London and New York.
We also predicted the world recession that began in 2007 one year before it happened. I even cashed in all my personal stocks and shares months before the crash. Hence FedEE was one of the few organizations that was not at all surprised by the UK referendum decision to leave the European Union. In fact, we could see it coming as early as 2011 and investigated alternative countries to establish our head office then. We began moving our services to Cyprus this Spring and once again, I cashed in by betting on an exit vote at a lucrative 5/1.
Why did we know? It was quite simple. The sentiment of the British people outside London is naturally highly insular. London is like a separate country as it is a magnet for the brightest and best informed and is also highly cosmopolitan. Yet elsewhere in England and Wales the immigration issue is all the talk at social gatherings and in the social media. The opinion polls also pointed to Brexit, although they were interpreted by pro-EU camp with a fantasy filter. Finally, a sensible voting system would set a threshold at 55% to ensure a “clear majority” and require all parts of the UK to agree to leave the EU. Without this, the leave stalwarts would combine with the protest vote undecideds to give the exact 48/52 outcome that actually arose.
So what about future changes no-one else seems to have yet seen – but are blindingly obvious?
We can offer the reader two. One concerns Turkey, which desperately wants to join the EU, in spite of its government dropping its long held non-secular stance. The exit of the UK will make the faceless officials in the European Commission yearn for a counter move to save their personal reputations and ensure the survival of the European Union. This means a big player like Turkey has its best chance to gain EU membership. In fact, talks are now underway to do just that. But the biggest perceived barrier to EU membership is Turkey’s occupation of Northern Cyprus. Politicians will find it difficult to climb down openly on this issue, but the government is concerned about the religious radicalization of young men in the annexed zone – which could open up a further front for it to defend as well as the Kurds and incursions across the Syrian border. So we predict that sometime in 2017 Turkish troops will suddenly depart from northern Cyprus. There will be no contingency plan for this in the west, least of all by the Cyprus government. But it will dramatically change EU attitudes to Turkey and give it a free ticket to accession.
The second thing we see happening concerns Europe as a whole. In ten years time its complexion will change beyond all recognition. The EU will effectively break down into smaller trading units with treaties governing trade between them. France and Germany will be one bloc, Scandinavia another and Eastern Europe will be forced into its own cooperation zone, once more dominated by Russia. The difficult truth of it is that NATO’s hostility is either going to generate a massive conflict that will be an endgame or Russia will have to be given the opportunity to be reintegrated into the world economy. We believe the latter will happen. But the cost of peace will be partition of Ukraine and maybe some deal with the Baltic states to give their Russian-speaking minorities some autonomy, or improved rights.
The implications for HR is to stop thinking of eastern European countries as just low cost production centres. France will always remain a nightmare for employers, but serving France from across the German borders will be increasingly attractive. Finally, if there is one location which is overlooked as an ideal place to locate a European and middle eastern head office it is Cyprus. English is spoken everywhere and its tax laws are the most attractive in Europe. Reunification of the island will make a Cyprus HQ an even better proposition. That is why the Federation chose it as its new post-Brexit home.