📢 Updated EBI working paper out 📢 ➡ “Cryptomercantilism vs. Monetary Sovereignty. How stablecoin laws shape the battle for international monetary supremacy“ (with Edoardo Martino and Eric Monnet) ⬅ Available #openaccess at @ssrn.bsky.social papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

EU energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen tried to convince EU ministers not to respond to a looming fuel shortage by subsidising fuel consumption. Bottom line: this isn't 2022. Europe needs fossil fuel limits, and not try to subsidise its way out @euobserver.com euobserver.com/209324/europ...

I think this argument is worthy of discussion and serious consideration in the UK also #r4today

EU energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen tried to convince EU ministers not to respond to a looming fuel shortage by subsidising fuel consumption. Bottom line: this isn't 2022. Europe needs fossil fuel limits, and not try to subsidise its way out @euobserver.com euobserver.com/209324/europ...

The Dutch industry has enriched itself at the expense of temporary agency workers - many of them originating from fellow EU countries - against the principle of equal treatment as enshrined in EU law. Billions of euros are now at stake 👇 www.ftm.eu/articles/net...

The funniest thing is he lost money doing this

And in Belgium the clown du jour GL Bouchez of rightwing MR wants to reduce excise taxes proportionate to the price hikes. Which will deprive government of much-needed income (until this eventually hits zero) and reduces any incentive to reduce consumption, leading to even higher prices 🫣

Four of the six biggest EU economies have implemented (generous) fiscal support measures for fuel consumption. With physical shortages a real possibility that seems…not great?

This by Rheinmetall CEO is precisely the arrogance that will come to haunt 🇩🇪. It was arrogance vis-à-vis Chinese competitors that helped bring German carmakers in the ditch they are in. And it‘s this type of arrogance vis-à-vis lessons learned by Ukrainians that will cost us.

“We will restore peace, stability and harmony throughout the world"-Donald Trump @katemac.bsky.social & I decided it was time for a Polycrisis podcast about the peace, stability & harmony reigning throughout the world Enjoy our first season ELECTRIC WORLD ORDER podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

No commentary needed.

hét grote verschil met 2022 is de vloedgolf aan Chinese EV’s en batterijen. Het alternatief is nu nog voor de hand liggender dan vier jaar geleden.

per rhodium: “China's rapid expansion of electricity and concentration of upstream materials production has created a strong pro-cyclical environment that is difficult to compete with and almost impossible to replicate.“

"If sustainability crashes your economy, you have to readjust," she said in the middle of an oil- and gas crisis (again). Solution: build out gas power, scrap gas boiler phaseout, cut rooftop solar subsidies; deprioritise renewable grid connection. Not sure she got the memo 🤯

hahaha

At one point, Kövesi said a senior EU official told her to tone down her warnings about the scale of corruption. “I said: How dare you tell me this?" Great & depressing interview with a formidable prosecutor who did her job far better than EU bigwigs had planned for, via @elisabraun.bsky.social

I've marinated on this... and I think Rutte is really putting NATO in danger. Going out of his way to align with Trump on the Iran war could leave NATO politically orphaned in the US. Both right and left, may view NATO as toxic.

#$UAL *would* drop this on a Friday night wouldn’t they.

“If crisis is a profit engine for fossil capital, then stability is a precondition for a just transition. That requires demilitarization, public investment and a political economy that treats energy as a public good not a commodity,” via @pmbigger.bsky.social

Wilders haat alles links van hem meer dan dat hij van Nederland houdt. dat maakt dat gedweep met "onze cultuur" en "eigen volk" zo potsierlijk. pseudopatriot.

First week of war cost about $11bn. What happens to the global economy if this goes on for another 20+- weeks?

How are country gov’s responding to impending energy crisis. Spain with a hefty tax reduction across the board. 1/x

"How does hiking rates help with oil price shocks" It's not that central bankers don't have any answers to such questions. It's more they often seem embarrassed to give those answers

t’s genuinely crazy to me that the Bank of England is earnestly fretting about second order wage-price dynamics instead of the obvious immediate growth effects, based on the usual expectations drivel. Bailey coming out for a damage control interview makes the ECB look like a model of competence.

staggering.

"The sellers of oil now face a new type of existential problem." New insights on the war on Iran by some exceptional contributors - @pmbigger.bsky.social of @cplusc.bsky.social and @transitionsec.bsky.social , and @katemac.bsky.social of @thepolycrisis.bsky.social www.break-down.org/oil-war-ii/

Spain’s Sánchez attacks other EU leaders for exploiting energy prices to gut climate policies

Het is al te laat. Media hebben de Vos veel te veel aandacht gegeven. Op televisie, grote interviews in de krant, mooie foto’s. Daar gaat het steeds mis. De media.

New op-ed out in the Danish media oulet Børsen: "Selling off the state-owned company Ørsted will weaken Danish energy security." Co-authored with @jhasselbalch.bsky.social, @rosiecollington.bsky.social, @voldsgaard.bsky.social, and Søren Lund Frandsen borsen.dk/nyheder/opin...

Andrew Bailey is a TINA Thatcherite and he killed the climate policies of the Bank of England with the same 'the market knows better' line. every critic worries that we're heading to a new (old) world of credit policy and financial repression. They cant stop it. www.ft.com/content/9516...

KLIMAATRECHTVAARDIGHEID | Journalist Wester van Gaal weet na vijf jaar in Brussel hoe succesvol de olie- en gaslobby is in het ondermijnen van klimaatbeleid. Daarom verzamelde hij een handvol verhalen die laten zien hoe hard die strijd wordt gevoerd. f9udw.r.bh.d.sendibt3.com/mk/mr/sh/SMJ...

Nieuwsbrief!

Bruegel not mincing words.

54/ This is a far bigger fuel, fertilizer, food crisis for Asia and Europe than it is for the US. The weakest people will suffer the most. Again, just as after Ukraine. "Pakistan gets 99% of its LNG from Qatar. Fertilizer plants are shutting across the country because they can’t get feedgas

It’s going to be fun times for monetary policy arguing soon. We get to re-hash the COVID arguments.

Tale of two petrostates. Data from @robbieandrew.bsky.social: robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/

Natural gas supply shocks have stagflationary effects in the €zone. A 10% increase in gas prices raises core prices by ~0.5% and reduces economic activity. Gas shocks pass through to core prices more strongly than oil shocks, due to role of gas in European electricity production

IFS correct here: government needs to start thinking seriously about the design of fiscal responses to supply shocks. Otherwise it gets done incoherently and expensively on the hoof, with negative knock on effects. This lesson should have been learned already.

📉

More talk of rate hikes. It’s striking that the question of how effective they were, and at what cost they came, is so rarely asked. As far as I know the ECB has not published a comprehensive ex-post impact assessment of its energy-crisis-era rate hikes.

5/ important note: in a high oil price scenario, countries that produce lots of oil are NOT necessarily protected from effects of high oil prices. If your country’s oil industry is a commercial one that is allowed to export & not under heavy state control, yr citizens pay the global price tra la

After a short pause, these parties will then start braying about black holes and maxxed out credit cards and demanding cuts to the justice system, or the prisons, or social care or whatever.

EU competition + climate chief Ribera - Spain's commissioner in Brussels - on her boss VDL's comments about on rules-based order "It is fair to say that maybe it was not the most adequate manner to express herself - but yes she is fully committed to the international order"

6/ "🇵🇭 Philippines has said it will shorten the work week for government offices to save energy 🇧🇩 Bangladesh has limited the illuminated decorations festooning streets during the holy month of Ramadan. They’ve also shut fertilizer production" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

thank the gods..

@tinekestrik.bsky.social on migration: "This far-right proposal will lead to human rights violations, lawsuits and huge costs. The proposal will now go to the plenary. Let us hope that the Christian Democrats will reflect and repent."

from yesterday, "Europe’s response to Monday’s oil surge was anything but unified. Some officials called for a faster shift to clean energy, while others wanted to import more oil and gas from other places," for @euobserver.com

'The letter signed by 100 European companies and investors rebuffs the anti-emissions trading push from governments and the chemicals lobby, showing that not all European firms are aligned on weakening carbon pricing' for @euobserver.com

This is the cloud of oil currently hovering over Tehran, released when the US bombed the city's oil depots. A stew of particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals & volatile organic compounds is raining down into the city right now. 1/2

New article out in Climate Policy with @james7jackson.bsky.social: "Subsidizing global decarbonization: how Chinese state support for clean technologies enables and (potentially) obstructs a worldwide green transition." www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....