The Christmas tree is on fire!

Unfortunately, from that point onward the global madness only seemed to pick up speed. It started with the UK formally dropping out of the EU. Days later there was the rioting on Capitol Hill; and then in Russia Alexei Navalny was arrested. January ended with the news that 2 mln people worldwide had died from the coronavirus. And there was still another eleven months of all this to follow. The seasonal mood was also shattered in January when the so-called Constitutional Tribunal in Poland made the country’s already draconian anti-abortion laws even stricter, prompting thousands of people to come out onto the streets in protest. After a whole series of scandals and affairs, which no one even seemed to paying any attention to anymore, an immigration crisis broke out on our eastern border in the spring, which resulted in a state of national emergency being declared. Then it turned out that some EU laws apparently “contradicted the Polish constitution”. And just to finish things off, the head of the Polish national bank proudly declared that the bank had surprised the market by raising interest rates. Under such circumstances, the only hope we were given for the future came in the form of a few private space launches – but this only seemed to emphasise that there’s clearly nowhere left to run to on our home planet.

However, the news from the real estate market has been just a little bit more optimistic, as it has been left relatively unscathed by all these external events and has even started to make up for its 2020 losses. This could be clearly seen at two of Eurobuild’s events: our warehouse and our annual conferences. Two markets in Poland are booming: industrial and residential. And since it’s great to follow up on such trends, in the main article this month our Berlin correspondent delves into the push to nationalise residential funds in the city and the impact this could have in Poland. We’re backing up this investigation with a look at some of the hard data from a report by Cushman & Wakefield. We also turn our eye onto ESG, a concept that is revolutionising the sector – including the warehousing market. We also check out flexible office space to see how the “old” players are doing and whether any new ones have emerged. Another issue we look into is why linear parks are so popular.

And as Christmas and the New Year approach, I shall quote Yura Schevtchuk once again, who (in the same song that I referred to at the beginning) also belts out the line: “What we lost yesterday to the fire, we will find alive today in the ashes.” In other words, we just have to wait.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our friends and readers!