The enthusiasm for a new EU Defense Fund should be tempered. Not only are there the problems and shortcomings that surfaced with the implementation of the EU’s most recent fund initiative, the Recovery and Resilience Facility, there is also a more fundamental issue that can no longer be ignored. This type of EU Fund creates enormous perverse incentives. Better alternatives are available.

Vladimir Putin’s failure record in Ukraine is impressive. Nevertheless there can be no doubt about his intent to destroy our common Western values: individual freedom, democracy, human rights and rule of law. Therefore Western allies of the government in Kyiv need to go all the way in supporting Ukraine’s right to self-defense. “Ukraine fatigue” has to be banned.

Full and unconditional support for Ukraine cannot be squared with the import levies on Ukrainian exports into the EU. The EU needs to revise thoroughly its agricultural policies.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has been notoriously absent in the financing of defense activities, nuclear energy and mining projects. Given the huge geopolitical and economic challenges the European Union is facing, it would be outrageously absurd to prolong the EIB’s absence in these three sectors.

The new EU fiscal rules, or more formally: the new framework for the EU’s economic governance, risks not achieving healthier public finances nor a sustained drive for structural reforms and much needed investments. Hence, these new rules are a disappointment at a moment that the EU and its member states are desperately in need of fiscal space and augmented growth.

A sigh of relief went through the EU corridors when last week a unanimous agreement was reached on the Ukraine Facility. €50bn in aid for Ukraine looks like an impressive sum but will unfortunately not be sufficient.

The focus on month-to-month changes in inflation rates is misplaced. Monetary policy action should look forward much more than look back. The room for policy rate reductions is nada at present, and for months to come.

Headline inflation is coming down fast now in the eurozone and the United States. It is however too early to consider the “monster” Christine Lagarde once referred to as fully caged. New research underlines the necessity of keeping that ”monster” under lock and key.

War in Europe, war in the Middle East, continuous high tension in the South China Sea and the Pacific at large. Superpowers that hardly talk to each other anymore. Are we getting closer to a clash of civilizations?