Brussels Economic Forum 2022: War, pandemic and climate to top agenda

In this week's episode, Real Economy speaks to the IMF’s Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath and the EU’s Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis about the economic fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

The team also looks ahead to the EU's flagship economic event, the Brussels Economic Forum, focusing on some of the big challenges that the young and future generations will face. 

Russia’s war is first and foremost a tragedy for the people of Ukraine. Europe's immediate response has been to show solidarity and help the refugees. Now, as food and energy prices soar, and as Europe moves urgently to end its dependency on Russian energy, what does it mean for the EU’s economy? That will be the big question at the Brussels Economic Forum later this month.

To get a global perspective on all this, Naomi Lloyd spoke to Gita Gopinath, number two at the International Monetary Fund in Washington. 

Naomi Lloyd, Euronews:

"How far-reaching will the economic impact of the war be on Europe and what will it mean for our everyday lives?"

Gita Gopinath, First Deputy Managing Director, IMF:

"The war in Ukraine will have a significant effect on almost all of Europe. We downgraded our growth projections for major European economies by about one percent to - now what we are projecting is - three percent for this year. At the same time, we are projecting inflation to be significantly higher. So the most direct effect that we're seeing on people's lives, of course, outside of Ukraine and the refugee crisis, that we're seeing there, is the fact that commodity prices have gone up, energy costs have gone up substantially. And that is affecting people's purchasing power. And the impact of the war and the sanctions haven't played out fully at this