Rússia, Churchill, Da Vinci, Monalisa, Putin... Enigmas, Mistérios e Segredos

Churchill tinha toda a razão, a Rússia é mesmo "uma charada envolta num mistério dentro de um enigma"... Mas, muito antes do grande Winston ter cunhado a síntese definidora dos mistérios russos, já Leonardo da Vinci nos tinha profeticamente avisado do que nos estava reservado... Hoje, levantamos aqui uma ponta do véu que tais segredos cobre.

Nova Guerra Fria abre Era de Geoeconomia

The Economic Consequences of a new Cold War

Geopolitics is reshaping the global economy, and will do some for the foreseeable future. We have indeed entered an era of “geo-economics.”

The growing geopolitical tensions between China, The United States and Europe have given rise to a whole new vocabulary: National security, decoupling, de-risking, onshoring, friend-shoring, near-shoring, and Cold War II are now the talk of the town...

Depending how the balance of national security and economy is struck in the end, the damage can be considerable, and even catastrophic.

Not your grandfather’s cold war

A new cold war, if it ends that way, will be very different from the last one. The Soviet Union and its COMECON allies hardly had any interaction with the west, and even that was focused on commodities, such as the grain-for-oil deals between the USSR and the United States. Trade with the USSR never amounted to more than 2 percent of the OECD’s total trade.

In contrast, China today is a key note in global supply chains, supplies some 20 percent of imports of advanced economies, and is increasingly a supplier of intermediaries to other countries, notably in South East Asia. This means that global supply chains increasingly depend on inputs from China, from rare earths to batteries to machine tools.

Furthermore, China is becoming more and more a source new technologies, innovation and ideas, produced by the millions of STEM students graduating every year, and the hundreds of thousands of PhDs, many of them studying and working at universities in the west. In peaceful times, this is a source of great benefits to the world, but in times of tension it is seen as a worrisome gain in capacity of a potential adversary.

The end of the first cold war also meant a large “peace dividend” of reduced spending on the military. According to numbers of Stockholm-based SIPRI, military spending as a share of global GDP fell from 6 percent of global output in the 1960s at the peak of the cold war to 2.1 percent in 20221. The same national security concerns that are reshaping global value chains could lead to increased military spending. (.....)

All of this still leaves aside a possible upturn in military spending. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many European NATO members are now considering upping their spending to the NATO norm of 2 percent of GDP, and in addition, Germany has announced a special allocation of EUR100bn. to refurbish their military. Japan has committed to increase its spending to 2 percent of GDP by 2027, an increase of 60 percent. World military spending overall grew by 3.7 percent in real terms in 2022, the highest level ever recorded by SIPRI, which has numbers dating back to 1949.

Irrespective how long green lists are, or how small the yards with high fences without a restoration of some level of trust between the US and Europe on the one hand, and China on the other, as I argued almost 3 years ago. If a country cannot be certain of supplies of critical goods from one country, it will seek to diversify away from the most efficient supplier, and choose an ally to supply it, or reshore production altogether, irrespective of the efficiency losses. If a country cannot be assured of access to critical technologies, it will choose to invent it itself, irrespective of the duplication involved.

Strategic Trust as Vivian Balakrishnan called it recently in a speech at the ANU is the glue that keeps the global order from disintegrating. If a country cannot be reasonably certain that it can import the critical goods and technology it needs, that country will strive to make it itself.

This classic prisoners’ dilemma will result in a world of trade blocks, and all will be worse off than today.

https://berthofman.substack.com/p/the-economic-consequences-of-a-new

Kemal Atatürk sobre a Turquia e o Islão

"Depuis plus de 500 ans, les règles et les théories d'un vieux cheikh arabe, et les interprétations abusives de générations de prêtres crasseux et ignares ont fixé, en Turquie, tous les détails de la loi civile et criminelle. Elles ont réglé la forme de la constitution, les moindres faits et gestes de la vie de chaque citoyen, sa nourriture, ses heures de veille et de sommeil, la coupe de ses vêtements, ce qu'il apprend à l'école, ses coutumes, ses habitudes et jusqu'à ses pensées les plus intimes. L'islam, cette théologie absurde d'un bédouin immoral, est un cadavre putréfié qui empoisonne nos vies."

Kemal Atatürk , criador da Turquia moderna

Why Russia's Biggest Threat is Actually China

 ver aqui: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iibs7buNwxQ

ALTA CORRUPÇÃO: Dirigentes políticos e jornalistas europeus ao serviço de Moscovo, Pequim e até de Havana

A escandaleira da "traição das elites" europeias - que vai de Primeiros-Ministros, ministros, deputados, políticos e presidentes de câmara a jornalistas - que traem os seus países e se vendem a Estados adversários pelos "trinta dinheiros"

Lista (parcial) de capturas de dirigentes políticos europeus pela China, pela Rússia e etc.

No início do Verão de 2020, o Parlamento Europeu decidia criar "une commission spéciale pour étudier les ingérences étrangères dans les affaires européennes", cuja presidência foi entregue a um jovem e neófito eurodeputado social-democrata, Raphaël Glucksmann, filho do falecido filósofo André Glucksmann. Claramente, o Parlamento Europeu não esperava nem investia grande coisa nesta comissão especial. 

A alguns observadores pareceu mesmo que a comissão nascia para acalmar alguns "excitados românticos" e que se esperava que definhasse, com o tempo, sem alardes e sem sair do seu cantinho. Era não contar com o empenhado trabalho de Glucksmann, a sua dedicação e capacidade de encontrar "boas fontes" e outras "gargantas fundas"

Rapidamente, a comissão estabeleceu uma lista (que cresce todos os dias) de altos responsáveis políticos dos Estados da UE pagos por Pequim e Moscovo. Raphael Glucksmann começa, então, a falar da necessidade de pôr termo a "vingt longues années d‘aveuglement et de corruption des élites européennes". Desta "traição das elites", demos conta há quase dois anos, destacando esta investigação aos "Políticos europeus nas mãos da China e da Rússia".

No início de 2022, o trabalho da comissão permitia já ao magazine francês Le Point escrever: 

"La commission Inge, créée spécialement pour armer l'Union européenne contre les guerres hybrides menées par les voisins dérangeants, s'est penchée sur un phénomène identifié par tous les services de contre-espionnage: la capture des élites européennes par deux puissances, la Russie et la Chine. C'est une véritable toile d'araignée qui s'ébauche au fur et à mesure des recrutements de personnalités de haut rang. 

"Ce sont ainsi 7 anciens Premiers Ministres (France, Allemagne, Belgique, Autriche, Finlande, République tchèque) qui travaillent ou ont travaillé au service d'intérêts russes ou chinois après leur carrière politique, 1 vice-chancelier allemand, 5 anciens ministres des Finances ou de l'Économie (France, Bulgarie, Luxembourg), 2 anciens ministres des Affaires étrangères (Autriche, République tchèque), un ex-ministre de la Défense (République tchèque) et quelques autres ministres de moindre rang…"

E Raphaël Glucksmann, sem papas na língua, declarava: «Russes et Chinois assurent la retraite dorée de dizaines de décideurs politiques d'Europe».

Pelo que o bem informado jornalista do Le Point escrevia, a comissão de Glucksmann estava a trabalhar sobre matérias "bem conhecidas" dos serviços franceses de contra-espionagem...

Meses depois, em Novembro de 2022, chegava-me um convite para o lançamento, em Paris, de um livro assinado por três ex-patrões da DST, o lendário serviço francês de contra-espionagem. Raphael Glucksmann e a sua comissão já não estavam sozinhos e, a partir daí, as línguas começaram a soltar-se... E continuam. Talvez ainda cheguem a Portugal... 

Convite - La DST sur le front de la guerre froide.

Mapa Etnológico da Península (antes das invasões e guerras romanas), 200 anos antes de Cristo

Uma síntese gráfica do trabalho de investigação desenvolvido pelo saudoso geógrafo/historiador Luís Fraga da Silva.

clique na imagem

O "Novo Consenso de Washington" ou o Enterro do Neo-Liberalismo

Trump conquistou o poder com um "Make América Great Again" que foi o toque de finados da "globalização" e da sua apologética narrativa "neo-liberal". Trump tinha sabido envergar e muito bem vender o discurso político (elaborado por Steve Bannon) que fazia o encontro entre uma emergente e nova racionalidade geopolítica e as angústias da maior minoria americana, os trabalhadores brancos ou, no dizer da senhora Clinton, os "deploráveis", também ditos em linguajar de sociólogo, os "white trash". Ninguém quis perguntar, na altura, por quem dobravam os sinos. Era mais fácil atribuir a "inesperada" vitória de Trump a uma "conspiração russa". Eleito Biden, muita gente tomou a nuvem por Juno ou os seus desejos pela realidade e "achou" que esta vitória do candidato do PD era um retorno ao pré-Trump. Enganaram-se, claro.

Joe Biden prosseguiu e desenvolveu a política MAGA de Trump mas mudando-lhe a imagem: vestiu-lhe uma roupagem sexy e estampou-lhe um sorriso na cara. Assim, continuou a fatal erosão do velho "consenso de Washinton", que vinha dos anos 80 do século passado com as suas narrativas da globalização produtora de felicidade e do neo-liberalismo produtor de racionalidade económica. A oração fúnebre foi agora rezada pelo National Security Adviser do Presidente Biden, Jake Sullivan, que, enquanto enterrava o velho "consenso", aproveitou para apresentar o novo.

The New Washington Consensus

Franklin Foer | The Atlantic | May 10, 2023

Earlier this month, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan delivered a speech at the Brookings Institution that historically would have made for front-page material but barely registered in the world beyond wonkdom. His address was a muscular statement of ideological intent.

Jake Sullivan (National Security Adviser, do Presidente Biden)

He argued that President Joe Biden’s agenda channeled a set of ideas Sullivan called the “new Washington consensus.” There was a bit of cheek in his use of that term. The Washington Consensus was a phrase that entered circulation at the very end of the 1980s, describing the emerging bipartisan faith in globalization, deregulation, and the wisdom of markets, suited to an era of optimistic triumphalism. But that era is ending. Or, as Sullivan put it, “The last few decades revealed cracks in those foundations.”

What Sullivan championed in the speech was something like the antithesis of that old paradigm. He said that ever-greater global interdependence is no longer desirable. One reason is China, which participates in global capitalism without fairly playing by its rules. Another is the realization, exposed by the pandemic-induced crisis in the intricate global supply chain, that the American economy is vulnerable to even small disruptions on the other side of the planet. That crisis was an indication that the world has gone too far in a libertarian direction and needs the sort of regulation and government investment that only a short while ago were highly unfashionable in the Washington policy sphere.

Although he didn’t justify his use of the term this way, he could get away with describing his views as representative of a new “consensus”: Both Trump and Biden have positioned themselves as economic nationalists, self-consciously abandoning the precepts of the old order.

That’s not to describe the Trump and Biden versions of economic nationalism as equivalent.  Although Trump delivered vituperative speeches, inflected by xenophobia, about elites destroying American manufacturing, he didn’t really have any ideas about how to reverse course beyond jacking up tariffs. Biden’s national-security adviser, by contrast, put a big idea at the center of his speech. He extolled the virtues of industrial strategy: a new role for the state in directing the trajectory of the economy.

Industrial strategy begins with the premise that the national interest demands that certain industries flourish domestically. .....

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-new-washington-consensus/ar-AA1aWvVE

O último Kaplan: "The Tragic Mind"

A mais recente obra de Robert Kaplan mostra como "the essence of geopolitics is tragedy"... Uma obra que chega no momento azado para ajudar na compreensão desta era de crescentes tensões geopolíticas.

Como nos diz o editor,

A moving meditation on recent geopolitical crises, viewed through the lens of ancient and modern tragedy

Some books emerge from a lifetime of hard-won knowledge. Robert D. Kaplan has learned, from a career spent reporting on wars, revolutions, and international politics in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, that the essence of geopolitics is tragedy. In The Tragic Mind, he employs the works of ancient Greek dramatists, Shakespeare, German philosophers, and the modern classics to explore the central subjects of international politics: order, disorder, rebellion, ambition, loyalty to family and state, violence, and the mistakes of power.

The great dilemmas of international politics, he argues, are not posed by good versus evil—a clear and easy choice—but by contests of good versus good, where the choices are often searing, incompatible, and fraught with consequences. A deeply learned and deeply felt meditation on the importance of lived experience in conducting international relations, this is a book for everyone who wants a profound understanding of the tragic politics of our time.


Como dizem Kissinger e outros:

“Spare, elegant and poignant. . . . If there is a single contemporary book that should be pressed into the hands of those who decide issues of war and peace, this is it.”
—John Gray, New Statesman

“A brilliant study of how, as foreign policy often comes down to a search for the lesser evil, self-knowledge is a better guide than the CIA Factbook.”
—Dominic Green, Washington Examiner

“Classical drama provides crucial lessons for policymakers. . . . A road map for effective, well-considered policy.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“[A] short but profound book. . . . [Kaplan] brings to his work a knowledge of the inextricable link between history and geography, experiences of the chaos of war as a foreign correspondent embedded with American forces, and a careful study of the relevance of classical geopolitics to international relations.”
—Francis Sempa, New York Journal of Books

“If anyone is qualified to talk about war and conflict, it’s Robert Kaplan and his forty years as a foreign correspondent. He is on everyone’s list of top policy thinkers and has written 20 books to back up his reputation. He has now added another, The Tragic Mind, his most personal book, . . . about deep regret by a keen observer of war.”
–Patrick Luciani, The Hub

“[At] an efficient 150 pages, [the book] is a deep meditation on the concept of tragedy as developed by the Greeks, German philosophers, and an array of Western literary figures from Shakespeare to Camus. The book is engrossing, both as literary survey and personal essay on what it takes to navigate crises.”
—John Waters, RealClear Defense

“It is tragic that Robert D. Kaplan’s luminous The Tragic Mind is so urgently needed.”
—George F. Will

“Robert Kaplan has augmented his many penetrating studies of societies, regions, and strategies with The Tragic Mind. It deals brilliantly with the impact on the human mind of the changes wrought by conflicts and transformations in various historical periods. A moving culmination by one of America’s most thoughtful observers of international trends.”
—Henry A. Kissinger, author of Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy

“This is a brilliant and unique philosophical journey from the ancient Greeks through Shakespeare’s canon and on to modern existential literature. But above all, it is a meditation on geopolitics grounded in a lifetime of global reporting.”
—Admiral James Stavridis, 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and author of To Risk It All

“Robert Kaplan combines his knowledge of the classics with four decades of firsthand experience with wars and crises to wisely warn ahistorical Americans that all could have been helped by a greater tragic sensibility. He shows that tragedy is not fatalism or despair, but comprehension. A beautifully thoughtful essay.”
—Joseph S. Nye, Jr., author of Do Morals Matter?

“Robert Kaplan has long been his own toughest critic. Now, in The Tragic Mind, he draws on Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles for an unflinchingly courageous course correction: a deeply significant book for troubled times.”
—John Lewis Gaddis, author of On Grand Strategy

“This is an author who has made it his business to see the world we live in. I have always read his work with awe. In this book, Kaplan takes the reader beyond the realm of information and knowledge and into the territory of wisdom. It is a profound must-read for all who wish to understand the world as it is.”
—Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights

Quando o BCE reconhece a "nova realidade geopolítica"

Christine Lagarde, a directora do BCE, Banco Central Europeu, pronunciou recentemente, em New York, perante o CFR, Council of Foreign Relations, um importante discurso que aqui se regista, na integra, antecedido por uma síntese do comentário de Bruno Bertez. Lagarde reconhece que a geopolítica assumiu o comando das dinâmicas mundiais(que estão a transformar de cima a baixo o sistema global), procura estabelecer o que isso significa e as suas consequências. De facto, é a primeira vez que a 'patroa' do BCE reconhece que as crescentes rivalidades e tensões geopolíticas exercem uma sobredeterminação sobre as instâncias económicas. "A new geopolitical reality may well lie ahead, which could have profound implications for central bank policymaking." O dedo de Putin (e de outros...) passou pela cabeça de Christine Lagarde...

Vers la Fin de L’Hégémonie Occidentale?

Bruno Bertez | Paris | 28 avril 2023

Christine Lagarde a «analysé» les développements récents du commerce et de l’investissement mondiaux, et elle a évalué les implications de la contestation apparente de la domination hégémonique de l’économie américaine et du dollar dans l’économie mondiale.

«L’économie mondiale a traversé une période de changement transformateur. Suite à la pandémie, la guerre injustifiée de la Russie contre l’Ukraine, la militarisation de l’énergie, l’accélération soudaine de l’inflation, ainsi qu’une rivalité croissante entre les États-Unis et la Chine, les plaques tectoniques de la géopolitique se déplacent plus rapidement.»

Le dernier âge d’or

Elle a parlé avec nostalgie de la période post-1990 après l’effondrement de l’Union soviétique:

«Dans la période qui a suivi la guerre froide, le monde a bénéficié d’un environnement géopolitique remarquablement favorable. Sous la direction hégémonique des États-Unis, les institutions internationales fondées sur des règles ont prospéré et le commerce mondial s’est développé. Cela a conduit à un approfondissement des chaînes de valeur mondiales et, à mesure que la Chine rejoignait l’économie mondiale, à une augmentation massive de l’offre mondiale de main-d’œuvre.»

Oui, c’était l’époque de la vague de mondialisation, de l’augmentation des échanges et des flux de capitaux libres; la domination des institutions de Bretton Woods comme le FMI et la Banque mondiale dictant les conditions de crédit; et surtout, l’espoir que la Chine serait placée sous contrôle après son adhésion à l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC) en 2001.

Cependant, rien n’a fonctionné comme prévu.

Le pari occidental était idéologique, les penseurs stratégiques étaient persuadés que grâce à son insertion dans le marché mondial, la Chine allait se banaliser, allait rentrer dans le moule et qu’ainsi elle allait obéir aux fameuses règles.

Que nenni! La vague de mondialisation heureuse a pris fin en 2008 après la crise et la Grande Récession, et la Chine n’a pas joué le jeu en ouvrant son économie aux multinationales occidentales.

Cela a forcé les Etats-Unis à changer de politique vis-à-vis de la Chine et à passer de «l’engagement positif» à «l’endiguement négatif».

Puis vint l’invasion russe de l’Ukraine et la détermination renouvelée des Etats-Unis et de leurs "satellites/vassaux" européens d’étendre leur contrôle vers l’est et de s’assurer ainsi que la Russie échoue dans sa tentative d’exercer un contrôle sur ses voisins frontaliers.

Ce qui était bon

Lagarde commente les implications économiques:

«Mais cette période de stabilité relative peut maintenant céder la place à une instabilité durable entraînant une croissance plus faible, des coûts plus élevés et des partenariats commerciaux plus incertains. Au lieu d’une offre mondiale plus élastique, nous pourrions faire face au risque de chocs d’approvisionnement répétés.»

En d’autres termes, la mondialisation et la circulation aisée du commerce et des flux de capitaux qui ont tant profité au bloc occidental, c’est fini.

Tout ce qui était bon avant, souhaitable dans le cadre de la mondialisation, tant qu’elle profitait à l’Occident, c’est terminé. La religion du libre-échange, de l’ouverture des frontières s’évanouit car elle a fini par profiter à d’autres! Il faut revenir aux mesures protectionnistes (augmentation des tarifs, etc.) au contrôle du commerce, surtout technologique, et tenter d’inverser la mondialisation en un capital de «reshoring» (relocalisation) ou «friendshoring» (amicalocalisation).

«Dans la mesure où la géopolitique conduit à une fragmentation de l’économie mondiale en blocs concurrents, cela appelle une plus grande cohésion politique. Ne pas compromettre l’indépendance, mais reconnaître l’interdépendance entre les politiques et la meilleure façon dont chacune peut atteindre son objectif si elle est alignée sur un objectif stratégique.»

Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the Council on Foreign Relations’ C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics

New York, 17 April 2023

It is a pleasure to be here in New York.

The global economy has been undergoing a period of transformative change. Following the pandemic, Russia’s unjustified war against Ukraine, the weaponisation of energy, the sudden acceleration of inflation, as well as a growing rivalry between the United States and China, the tectonic plates of geopolitics are shifting faster.

We are witnessing a fragmentation of the global economy into competing blocs, with each bloc trying to pull as much of the rest of the world closer to its respective strategic interests and shared values. And this fragmentation may well coalesce around two blocs led respectively by the two largest economies in the world.

All this could have far-reaching implications across many domains of policymaking. And today in my remarks, I would like to explore what the implications might be for central banks.

In short, we could see two profound effects on the policy environment for central banks: first, we may see more instability as global supply elasticity wanes; and second, we could see more multipolarity as geopolitical tensions continue to mount.

A changing global economy

In the time after the Cold War, the world benefited from a remarkably favourable geopolitical environment. Under the hegemonic leadership of the United States, rules-based international institutions flourished and global trade expanded. This led to a deepening of global value chains and, as China joined the world economy, a massive increase in the global labour supply.

As a result, global supply became more elastic to changes in domestic demand, leading to a long period of relatively low and stable inflation.[1] That in turn underpinned a policy framework in which independent central banks could focus on stabilising inflation by steering demand without having to pay too much attention to supply-side disruptions.[2]

But that period of relative stability may now be giving way to one of lasting instability resulting in lower growth, higher costs and more uncertain trade partnerships. Instead of more elastic global supply, we could face the risk of repeated supply shocks. Recent events have laid bare the extent to which critical supplies depend on stable global conditions.

That has been most visible in the European energy crisis, but it extends to other critical supplies as well. Today the United States is completely dependent on imports for at least 14 critical minerals.[3] And Europe depends on China for 98% of its rare earth supply.[4] Supply disruptions on these fronts could affect critical sectors in the economy, such as the automobile industry and its transition to electric vehicle production.

In response, governments are legislating to increase supply security, notably through the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States and the strategic autonomy agenda in Europe. But that could, in turn, accelerate fragmentation as firms also adjust in anticipation. Indeed, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the share of global firms planning to regionalise their supply chain almost doubled – to around 45% – compared with a year earlier.[5]

This “new global map” – as I have called these changes elsewhere[6] – is likely to have first-order implications for central banks.

One recent study based on data since 1900 finds that geopolitical risks led to high inflation, lower economic activity and a fall in international trade.[7] And ECB analysis suggests similar outcomes may be expected for the future. If global value chains fragment along geopolitical lines, the increase in the global level of consumer prices could range between around 5% in the short run and roughly 1% in the long run.[8]

These changes also suggest that a second shift in the central bank landscape is taking place: we may see the world becoming more multipolar.

During the Pax Americana after 1945, the US dollar became firmly ensconced as the global reserve and transaction currency, and more recently, the euro has risen to second place.[9] This had a range of − mostly beneficial − implications for central banks. For example, the ability of central banks to act as the “conductor of the international orchestra” as noted by Keynes, or even firms being able to invoice in their domestic currencies, which made import prices more stable.[10]

In parallel, Western payments infrastructures assumed an increasingly global role.

For instance, in the decade after the Berlin Wall fell, the number of countries using the payments messaging network SWIFT more than doubled.[11] And by 2020, over 90% of cross-border transmissions were being signalled through SWIFT.[12]

But new trade patterns may have ramifications for payments and international currency reserves.

In recent decades China has already increased over 130-fold its bilateral trade in goods with emerging markets and developing economies, with the country also becoming the world’s top exporter.[13] And recent research indicates there is a significant correlation between a country’s trade with China and its holdings of renminbi as reserves.[14] New trade patterns may also lead to new alliances. One study finds that alliances can increase the share of a currency in the partner’s reserve holdings by roughly 30 percentage points.[15]

All this could create an opportunity for certain countries seeking to reduce their dependency on Western payment systems and currency frameworks – be that for reasons of political preference, financial dependencies, or because of the use of financial sanctions in the past decade.[16]

Anecdotal evidence, including official statements, suggests that some countries intend to increase their use of alternatives to major traditional currencies for invoicing international trade, such as the Chinese renminbi or the Indian rupee.[17] We are also seeing increased accumulation of gold as an alternative reserve asset, possibly driven by countries with closer geopolitical ties to China and Russia.[18]

There are also attempts to create alternatives to SWIFT. Since 2014, Russia has developed such a system for domestic and cross-border use, with over 50 banks across a dozen countries using it last year.[19] And since 2015 China has established its own system to clear payments in renminbi.

These developments do not point to any imminent loss of dominance for the US dollar or the euro. So far, the data do not show substantial changes in the use of international currencies. But they do suggest that international currency status should no longer be taken for granted.

Policy frameworks for a fragmenting world

How should central banks respond to these twin challenges?

We have clear examples of what not to do when faced with a sudden increase in volatility. In the 1970s, central banks faced upheaval in the geopolitical environment as OPEC became more assertive and energy prices that had been stable for decades ballooned. They failed to provide an anchor of monetary stability and inflation expectations de-anchored – a mistake that should never be repeated for as long as central banks are independent and have clear price stability mandates.

So, if faced with persistent supply shocks, independent central banks can and will go ahead with ensuring price stability. But this can be achieved at a lower cost if other policies are cooperative and help replenish supply capacity.

For example, if fiscal and structural policies focus on removing supply constraints created by the new geopolitics – such as securing resilient supply chains or diversifying energy production – we could then see a virtuous circle of lower volatility, lower inflation, higher investment, and higher growth. But if fiscal policy instead focuses mainly on supporting incomes to offset cost pressures (in excess of temporary and targeted responses to sudden large shocks), that will tend to raise inflation, increase borrowing costs and lower investment in new supply.

In this sense, insofar as geopolitics leads to a fragmentation of the global economy into competing blocs, this calls for greater policy cohesion. Not compromising independence, but recognising interdependence between policies, and how each can best achieve their objective if aligned behind a strategic goal.

We could see the benefits of this in Europe especially, where the multiplier effect of common action in areas such as industrial policy, defence and investing in green and digital technologies is much higher than Member States acting alone.

There is another benefit, too: achieving the right policy framework will not only determine how our economies fare at home, but also how they are viewed globally in a context of greater “system competition”. And while the international institutions established in the wake of Bretton Woods remain instrumental for fostering a rules-based multilateral order, the prospect of multipolarity raises the stakes for such internal policy cohesion.

For a start, an economic policy mix that produces less volatile growth and inflation will be key in continuing to attract international investment. Although 50-60% of foreign-held US short-term assets are in the hands of governments with strong ties to the United States – meaning they are unlikely to be divested for geopolitical reasons[20] – the single most important factor influencing international currency usage remains strength of fundamentals.[21]

By the same token, for Europe, long-delayed projects such as deepening and integrating our capital markets can no longer be viewed solely through the lens of domestic financial policy. To put it bluntly, we need to complete the European capital markets union. This will be pivotal in determining whether the euro remains among the leading global currencies or others take its place.

Central banks also have an important role to play here – even as protagonists.

For example, the manner in which swap lines are used could influence the dynamics of major international currencies.[22] Both the Federal Reserve and the ECB, within their respective mandates, have been proactive in providing offshore liquidity when recent crises have hit. But others are moving too, which is consistent with a rising role of their currencies. We have already seen the People’s Bank of China set up over 30 bilateral swap lines with other central banks to compensate for the lack of liquid financial markets in renminbi.[23]

How central banks navigate the digital era – such as innovating their payment systems and issuing digital currencies – will also be critical for which currencies ultimately rise and fall. This is an important reason why the ECB is exploring in depth how a digital euro could best work if launched.

So, we need to be ready for the new reality that may well lie ahead. The time to think about how to respond to changing geopolitics is not when fragmentation is upon us, but before. Because, if I may paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, fragmentation can happen in two ways: gradually, and then suddenly.[24]

Central banks must provide for stability in an age that is anything but stable. And I have no doubt that central banks will measure up to the challenge.

Thank you.


While globalisation increased the propagation of global shocks to the domestic economy and made inflation developments more global, it might also have helped to smooth the impact of shocks for each economy because it made supply more elastic to changes in domestic demand in each country. See ECB (2017), “Domestic and global drivers of inflation in the euro area”, Economic Bulletin, Issue 4.


The shift by central banks in advanced economies towards inflation-targeting regimes from the 1980s onwards also facilitated low and stable inflation.


The most recent data from the United States Department of the Interior are for 2021. See United States Department of the Interior (2022), “United States Geological Survey: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2022”, p. 5.


European Parliamentary Research Service (2022), “Securing the EU's supply of critical raw materials”, July.


McKinsey (2022), “Taking the pulse of shifting supply chains”, 26 August.


Lagarde, C. (2022), “A new global map: European resilience in a changing world”, keynote speech at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, 22 April.


Caldara, D. et al. (2023), “Do Geopolitical Risks Raise or Lower Inflation?”, 15 February.


Attinasi, M.-G., Boeckelmann, L. and Meunier, B. (2023), “Friend-shoring global value chains: a model-based assessment”, Economic Bulletin, ECB, Issue 2.


ECB (2022), “The international role of the euro”, June.


The benefits of international currency use include seigniorage, lower transaction and hedging costs, and lower external financing costs (“exorbitant privilege”). The costs include blurred monetary aggregate signals and capital flow volatility. See Gräb. J. and Mehl, A. (2019), “The benefits and costs of the international role of the euro”, in “The international role of the euro”, ECB, June.


In 1989, SWIFT had users in 79 countries. By 1999, this number increased to 189 countries. See “Swift history”.


Nölke, A. (2022), “The weaponization of global payment infrastructures: A strategic dilemma”, SAFE White Paper, No. 89, June.


Change in value of trade between 1990 and 2021. See Figure 5 in Aiyar, S. et al. (2023), “Geoeconomic Fragmentation and the Future of Multilateralism”, Staff Discussion Notes, International Monetary Fund, 15 January. See also International Monetary Fund (2023), “World Economic Outlook: A rocky recovery”, April, p. 107.


Naef, A., Monnet, E., Macaire, C., Mehl, A., and Eichengreen, B. (2022), “The renminbi’s unconventional route to reserve currency status”, VoxEU, 31 October.


Eichengreen, B., Mehl, A. and Chiţu, L. (2019), “Mars or Mercury? The geopolitics of international currency choice”, Economic Policy, Vol. 34, Issue 98, July.


The number of countries under financial sanctions has more than doubled between 2010 and 2022. See Figure 3.2 in International Monetary Fund (2023), “Global Financial Stability Report: Safeguarding Financial Stability Amid High Inflation and Geopolitical Risks”, April.


As noted in ECB (2023), “The international role of the euro”, forthcoming.


Such as Belarus, India, Pakistan, and certain Central Asian economies.


Nölke, A. (2022), “The weaponization of global payment infrastructures: A strategic dilemma”, SAFE White Paper, No. 89, June.


Weiss, C. (2022), "Geopolitics and the U.S. Dollar's Future as a Reserve Currency," International Finance Discussion Papers, No. 1359, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, October.


For example, with respect to the US dollar. See Georgiadis, G., Le Mezo, H., Mehl, A., and Tille, C. (2021), “Fundamentals vs. policies: can the US dollar’s dominance in global trade be dented?”, Working Paper Series, No 2574, ECB, Frankfurt am Main, July.


Tucker, P. (2022), Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order, Princeton University Press.


Naef, A., Monnet, E., Macaire, C., Mehl, A., and Eichengreen, B. (2022), “The renminbi’s unconventional route to reserve currency status”, VoxEU, 31 October.


See Hemingway, E. (1926), The Sun Also Rises. The original passage in the book related to bankruptcy: “‘How did you go bankrupt?’ Bill asked. ‘Two ways’, Mike said. ‘Gradually and then suddenly.’”