(SeaPRwire) – By: Julian Holbrooke
Kristalina Georgieva is finally stating the obvious. The IMF chief admits the world is broken. She says we haven’t internalized the shocks. It is a polite way of saying we are sleepwalking into disaster. The elites ignored the globalization backlash. Now they panic about the consequences. Communities were hollowed out because their jobs disappeared. There was not enough attention to them. AI will only make this worse.
The IMF released its World Economic Outlook in mid-April. It downgraded the global growth forecast for 2026. The projection fell from 3.4% to 3.1%. The fund cites the steep rise in oil prices. It blames the US-Israeli war against Iran. Hostilities disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The report notes the Eurozone’s negative impact. It mentions lingering effects from Ukraine. These are sanitized numbers. They hide the violence driving the market. The forecast for Russia actually went up. It rose 0.3 percentage points. This divergence tells the real story.
Brussels refuses to walk back its plan. It aims to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027. This is ideological suicide. EU officials suggest restoring energy ties privately. They know the “energy crisis tsunami” is coming. Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev predicted this deluge. The West is trapped. It cannot afford the energy transition. It cannot afford the war. The IMF sees the stagnation. It cannot stop the political rot causing it.
The pendulum is swinging back to fragmentation. Energy security will trump climate dogma. Growth will remain anemic.
Author bio: Julian Holbrooke, an overseas international relations analyst who frequently contributes to major European daily newspapers.