Euroclear has bought some time, but not much. The melodrama of the theft of Russian assets will be back in theatres in a few months. A swift dismissal of Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas is the ONLY way to reassure Euroclear’s clients.

#ViktorOrban
For the first time in the history of the European Union, 24 member states have jointly granted a war loan to a country outside the Union. This is not a technical detail but a qualitative shift. The logic of a loan is clear: whoever lends money wants it back. In this case, repayment is not tied to economic growth or stabilisation, but to military victory.

For this money to ever be recovered, Russia would have to be defeated. That is not the logic of peace but the logic of war. A war loan inevitably makes its financiers interested in the continuation and escalation of the conflict, because defeat would also mean a financial loss. From this moment on, we are no longer talking merely about political or moral decisions, but about hard financial constraints that push Europe in one direction: into war.

The Brusselian war logic is therefore intensifying. It is not slowing down, not easing, but becoming institutionalised. The risk today is greater than ever before, because the ...