Its much much worse, clearly.

More than in other European countries, the Dutch far-right drift is animated by a celebration of ignorance, stupidity even, and I’m afraid it won’t end with the next ‘pro-education’ party-led government.

This is a great PHOTO ESSAY on “solar hockey stick of hope”, and countries breaking free of oil and gas dependence. IF your country's media isn't telling you about the renewables global boom, then consider why.... www.science.org/content/arti... bsky.app/profile/scie...

€90bn in joint EU borrowing for Ukraine in 2026-27, Russia’s frozen assets to be used for reconstruction after peace deal has been reached according to Belgium’s De Wever.

D-Day for Europe to shore up Ukraine funding. As EU leaders huddle in Brussels, Stephen Paduano and I analyse the reparations loan in a new piece. This is not only a "There Is No Alternative" (TINA) moment—but the financial and legal risks are also manageable. 1/ www.cer.eu/insights/ukr...

Zelenskyy saying he understood Belgian PM’s legal worries irt Russia’s frozen assets and the reparations loan plan, but said: “We face bigger risks.” “There’s legal risks but it is not as scary as russia at you border.” #EUCO

Two weeks of parental leave, and I picked a great day to return to work. #EUCO. If you see me napping, you know why 🫠

"The so-called Deutschlandfonds, which will be anchored in state development bank KfW, ... seeded with about €30bn in public money and loan guarantees." Textbook derisking to ensure infrastructure will pay off for US private equity. Genius move by SPD finance ministry. www.ft.com/content/52c7...

The choice EU leaders face today is not the reparations loan vs. "Eurobonds". The choice is agreeing on a workable solution that rapidly gives a lot of money to Ukraine vs. going back to the drawing board with no clear idea where to go next while Ukraine's money is running out. Should be obvious.

7/10 As Keynes explained, rather than force countries with high wages relative to productivity to reduce them, the world would be better off if countries with low wages relative to productivity increased them. In that case, rising demand would keep pace with rising supply globally.

We have the technologies we need to cut pollution from the industrial sector. In our new report, we take a deep dive into an immediate, practical opportunity: electrifying low- and medium-temperature process heat in manufacturing food, beverage, paper and chemicals. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“The appetite to deregulate has been rapacious; the analysis of the costs and benefits of our policies has been non-existent; and, the repercussions, I would argue, could be dire.” www.ft.com/content/7027...

Central bank independence may need rethinking in the face of climate change, argue economists @geoffmann.bsky.social & @annpettifor.bsky.social. “Central bankers need to understand that they are political actors, not technical actors.” https://greencb.co/4rZg9H5 #CentralBank #ClimateFinance

Which leaves us with the one solution I have seen so far that satisfies all three criteria: The reparations loan. It is a piece of genial policy work: It gives Ukraine quasi-cash as the loan only has to be repaid once Russia ends the war and to the extent that Russia pays reparations.

Spot on. Moment of truth for Paris and Rome. Is France serious about strategic autonomy or is it just a vacuous talking point once Europe hits real trade-offs? And is Italy with Europe and Ukraine or Moscow and Washington?

I think China has shown it has no intention of changing course. The issue is Europe has shown no appetite to do anything meaningful about it. So unless that changes, the pattern of more Chinese support and empty European words will continue

This article treats the EU’s diminishing regulatory power as structural (and politically neutral) consequence of its shrinking share of global GDP. It doesn't mention the corporate lobbyists and captured politicians that spent years trying to weaken it. very misleading.

Ik mocht voor @oneworld.nl schrijven over de gevolgen van Nederlandse en Europese waterstofplannen in Zuidelijk Afrika. Ontwikkelaars beloven banen en welvaart, maar in de praktijk dreigen oude patronen zoals landroof en milieuschade zich te herhalen, dit keer netjes verpakt in een groen jasje.

Trump literally had two New York City real estate developers (Witkoff and Kushner) negotiating with Putin over access to hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used to rebuild Ukraine. (And we can guess which parts of Ukraine.) www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-2-tri...

⚠️The top 0.001% - less than 60,000 multi-millionaires - owns three times more wealth than the entire bottom half of humanity combined. Explore more findings in this third edition of the World Inequality report 👇 wir2026.wid.world

Omdat je om groene waterstof te maken eerst heeeel veel energie (wind en zon) moet opwekken, kijken Europese landen naar Zuidelijk Afrika. Maar 3,5 miljoen mensen in Z-Afrika hebben überhaupt geen stroom. Toch wil NL dáár stroom voor exportwaterstof opwekken. Koloniale toestanden for sure.

Ik mocht voor @oneworld.nl schrijven over de gevolgen van Nederlandse en Europese waterstofplannen in Zuidelijk Afrika. Ontwikkelaars beloven banen en welvaart, maar in de praktijk dreigen oude patronen zoals landroof en milieuschade zich te herhalen, dit keer netjes verpakt in een groen jasje.

Van de c.a. 340 miljard aan bedrijfswinsten in 2024 werd ongeveer 8 miljard via de wbso aan innovatie besteed. Dat is 2,4% van de winst voor innovatie. Stoppen met bedelen dus en eerst zelf investeren als het zo belangrijk is. Ondernemerschap!

White House Begins Christmas Season With Ceremonial Lighting Of Cross

Everything you ever wanted to know about Euroclear and Immobilized Russian assets. cepr.org/voxeu/column...

Lobby = poldercorruptie

1/4 The IMF formally recognizes that it is a depreciating RMB, not rising manufacturing efficiency, that drives China's growing trade surplus. www.ft.com/content/9c92...

The hydrogen bubble has burst. Nearly 60 major low-carbon H₂ projects have been cancelled or paused — far more capacity than the world has actually built. The reason? Fundamentals still don’t add up: • Demand isn’t there • Costs remain high • Infrastructure is missing www.ft.com/content/b098...

New escalation in Nexperia feud: China publishes names of Dutch spies

China fears its manufacturing is shrinking too fast and too far.

this is excellent on industrial electrification, cost-competitiveness, making the case for rapid deployment in hybrid systems www.iea.org/commentaries...

Fascinating vote analysis on European Parliament votes on Russia by @euobserver.com, with a particular focus on far-right parties:

🔥🔥

The affordability crisis is an inequality crisis. When prices spike in key sectors, it's not just inflation—it's a massive redistribution shock that hits poor households hardest. In our **new working paper**, we identify the sectors that matter most. A thread 🧵 scholarworks.umass.edu/entities/pub...

A French banker inside Euroclear, who flew to Russia 155 times for private reasons, allegedly tried to connect the company's CEO, Valérie Urbain, with Russian spies and threatened her when she declined, according to an investigation by EUobserver, Humo, and Dossier Center.

Belgium's PM Bart De Wever is playing around with Europe's security. My editorial via @wort.lu www.wort.lu/internationa...

Elon Musk openly compares the EU to Nazi Germany and yet tomorrow the EU institutions will happily post to X as if nothing had happened.

The baroque corruption schemes playing out in America and Russia completely outclass the kickback scandal in Ukraine. www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

From the @wsj.com chief foreign correspondent

In his book Kaput: The End of the German Miracle, political commentator Wolfgang Munchau traced many of today’s ills to this lust for the past. “This is why errors of judgment in the corporate sector get amplified,” Munchau wrote. “Everybody hangs together....

Sigh

Great piece. The US announcing itself like this could finally help trigger some EU resistance. But arguably it still undersells how ready (formerly) centrist governments and lawmakers are to jump on Trump’s anti-EU rhetoric and work with his far-right allies for short-term policy gains.

Still waiting a reaction by @vonderleyen, @eucopresident or @kajakallas on the new US National Security Strategy and its aim to destroy the EU and its liberal democracies.

The Trump administration released its latest National Security Strategy--and one thing that can be said is that there is no more pretending. It’s a plan to weaken European unity, to make Europe MAGA, to force Europe to take economic dictation by the USA…. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

The Trump administration wants to help “its political allies” on the far Right “restore their former greatness.” Just a reminder that the last time that they were in power across the continent was the 1930s & 40s. Tucker Carlson notwithstanding, I maintain that that period wasn’t all that great.

1/As FIFA delivers Trump his peace prize there will be many uncomfortable chuckles and head scratches. But this is no joke. It is another peace in building a neo-royalist order based not on states but hyper elites. Orders use symbols for legitimation. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Bang on from Ed Luce and Martin Sandbu. Getting the Ukraine loan passed is now a key litmus test for Europe if it’s a herbivore in a carnivore world.

"Whereas a more ambitious political right would once have reacted to environmental pressures and demographic decline by formulating a coherent ‘imperial response to the climate crisis’, today’s European nationalists prefer childish denial and self-defeating chauvinism." 👌

The hegemonic transition? That train has left the station, buddy.

”The lack of courage is shared all by Europe’s leaders—not just Belgium’s De Wever. Their hesitation to extend financial solidarity to Belgium, their fears for the euro’s international standing, their reluctance to move beyond unanimity in sanctions all reveal Europe’s enduring aversion to risk.”