Opinion
COMMENT: France’s instability risks weakening Europe at a critical moment
The French government fell on September 8, facing a 5.8% of GDP budget deficit it can neither fund nor reduce, plunging the Fifth Republic into yet another crisis at a critical time for Europe.
BEYOND THE BOSPOROS: Ozel, the opposition “genius” who keeps playing right into Erdogan’s hands
CHP leader can call congresses, “move the HQ” and appeal to the courts all he likes. There’s just one problem – there is no law in Turkey.
COMMENT: Putin’s pivot to China cements Russia’s vassalage to Beijing
When Donald Trump declared that Joe Biden had made the “unthinkable” mistake of pushing Moscow into Beijing’s arms, the US president suggested their partnership was inherently fragile.
ING: Czech industry joins the growth pack
Industrial output accelerated in July, beating market expectations. Robust gains were recorded in key segments of manufacturing, suggesting the onset of a broad-based recovery.
COMMENT: Potential sanctions on Russian oil keeps price outlook uncertain
The ongoing Ukraine war ceasefire talks and the potential for new and even more extreme sanctions on Russian oil exports is keeping the outlook for the price of oil uncertain, Oxford Economics said in a note.
ING: Risks to Czech inflation from wages and emission allowances
Inflation eased to 2.5% in August, dragged down by another monthly decline in food prices. We see the soft reading as a low point, with inflation set to gain pace over the coming quarter.
BOOKS: Globalisation splinters as US-China rivalry reshapes world economy
'The Fractured Age’ author, Capital Economics chief economist Neil Shearing, tells bne IntelliNews the defining trend of the coming decades will be fragmentation, driven by US-China rivalry.
COMMENT: Russia’s size is its Achilles’ heel as Ukraine targets its oil infrastructure
Since August the Armed Forces of Ukraine has mounted a continuous barrage on Russian refineries that has reduced output by 20%. Russia is so big that the Kremlin can’t protect all its pipelines and refineries.
COMMENT: Can Russia weather Ukrainian drone attack fuel crisis?
Russia is once again navigating a familiar crisis: surging gasoline prices, empty fuel pumps, and mounting pressure on its domestic supply system. This is not the first time Russia has faced a fuel crisis, but this one is especially bad.
COMMENT: Can Lukashenko capitalise on thaw in relations with the US?
When Donald Trump picked up the phone en route to his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15, his brief call with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko marked an unprecedented diplomatic moment.
Ukraine has made Russia’s refining sector a strategic liability
Russia’s ability to produce fuel is under attack. In the Far Eastern region of Primorye, kilometre-long queues at filling stations have already appeared and petrol prices are soaring as a fuel crisis gathers momentum.
Western reliance on peacekeepers and arms sales in lieu of real security guarantees doom Russo-Ukraine peace talks to failure
The coalition of the willing plan to send “reassurance forces” to Ukraine and buy Kyiv $100bn worth of new US weapons in lieu of giving Kyiv real collective security guarantees will doom imminent Russo-Ukraine peace negotiations to failure.
Russians have mixed feelings about Stalin, but only 2% condemn him
In May of this year the world was shocked by the Moscow City government decision to unveil a grand bas-relief of Stalin at the Taganskaya metro station in the heart of Moscow.
MACRO ADVISORY: Armenia and Azerbaijan, TRIPP’ing along the Zangezur Corridor
The Joint Declaration signed by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on August 8th in the White House, with the associated agreement to build the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) might be a pivotal point.
COMMENT: Belarus potato crisis
Belarus economic mismanagement and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko growing proclivity for Soviet-era fixes has caused a potato crisis that is emblematic of Belarus’ deepening economic problems.
COMMENT: What is Rosneft’s flagship Vostok Oil Project seeking to achieve?
Russia’s oil industry enjoyed a renaissance between 2008 and 2018 when about 30 new oil fields came online, significantly boosting production. The Vostok Oil fields hold some 45bn barrels of oil.
The unintended consequence of Trump's tariffs is pushing BRICS together
President Donald Trump’s tariff salvo aimed at some of the BRICS economies is in danger badly of backfiring on US interests by driving the more moderate members of the world’s leading emerging economies into the anti-Western Sino-Russian alliance
COMMENT: Russia’s debt relief scheme masks war spending in regional budgets
A quiet reshuffling of budget lines in several Russian regions is revealing how the Kremlin is using a federal debt write-off programme to subsidise military recruitment, according to Janis Kluge, fellow at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik.
Confusion reigns over the upcoming Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska
Russian President Vladimir Putin presented the Trump administration this week with a proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine that will be discussed at a meeting between the two presidents on August 15 in Alaska.
COMMENT: Moscow's strategic defeat, Washington's noisy triumph in the South Caucasus
With the historic Washington deal, the US is seizing from Russia the role of main mediator in the Armenian-Azerbaijani process.