Filip Hanka

🇨🇿🇪🇺

[Michael Weiss @michaeldweiss]

If I had to wager, I’d say Ratcliffe is in Moscow to warn about Russian escalation against Europe/NATO. Linked to U.S. intelligence shared with Poles, Balts and Scandinavians, and comes amid a noticeable uptick in suspected GRU sabotage operations and Russian drone activity. See Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, etc. You don't need DCIA for prisoner swaps. Ratcliffe is also the most pro-Ukraine official in the administration, responsible for helping Kyiv with deep strikes. Context here is important: Bill Burns went to Moscow in 2021 to warn Putin against... invading Ukraine.

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

An observer in Riga, Latvia reported a white aircraft, likely a U.S. Air Force C-40B, parked near the C-17A Globemaster III that arrived in Moscow earlier this morning.

Notably, on the same day the C-17 departed Joint Base Andrews, a C-40B operating under callsign RCH790 also departed Andrews and arrived in Riga.

The C-40B is operated by the 89th Airlift Wing and is used to transport senior U.S. government officials, including Cabinet level officials and senior military commanders, on official business.

Vehicles displaying diplomatic license plates were also observed near the aircraft in Riga. This suggests a senior U.S. government official may have been aboard the C-40B and could now be in Moscow, although the identities of any passengers and the purpose of the trip have not been confirmed.

[Scott Robertson @sarobertson_]

Carney: "The U.S. introduced in the last hours, efforts to restrict our ability to have other trade deals. We're the partner of choice in many respects for countries around the world, and the Americans wanted to restrict that. Unacceptable."

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This might not make me popular but I remain continuously impressed by Carney: to me, one of the few (if not the only) genuine statesman in the West.

It genuinely takes incredible balls and statesmanship - especially for Canada, arguably the western country that's most dependent on the US - to walk away from the table and match Trump's tariffs China-style.

Europe, with far less dependence on the US and considerably more resources than Canada, just pathetically caved and signed on Trump's humiliating terms when in the same situation.

[Carlo "Realism, Gedankenfetzen and Rants" Masala @CarloMasala1]

„This is hybrid warfare“

I'm skeptical about whether a naval drone can't be attributed to anyone.
So, hybrid, in this particular case, might not be the appropriate label.

[Andrew A. Michta @andrewmichta]

There is nothing “hybrid” about it, Ursula. Putin is probing and shaping the terrain (Phase Zero of the war). @vonderleyen

[GeoInsider @InsiderGeo]

BREAKING: Romania has just destroyed a Russian naval attack drone in the Black Sea, only a few hundred metres from the Neptun Deep gas operations.

The drone was detected in Romania’s exclusive economic zone, around 80 miles east of Constanța, close to the offshore infrastructure where several hundred people were working.
For the first time in this incident, two Romanian F-16s were scrambled with orders to fire.

One of the F-16s used its onboard cannon to destroy the drone safely.

Romanian Defence Minister Radu Miruță says the drone was loaded with explosives and that Ukraine officially confirmed through a newly established communication channel that it was not Ukrainian. A Romanian military command cell coordinated the response, with NATO involved at the command level

This is particularly significant because Neptun Deep is critical energy infrastructure and Romania expects the project to become a major source of gas once production begins.

And this is not happening in isolation. Earlier this month, Romanian forces also destroyed two Gerbera-type drones found drifting near the same offshore project

[WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3]

NATO officials have released a plan in the instant that Russia was to invade a Baltic country or fire missiles at one according to Bild:
-1st Nato would intercept incoming missiles and begin a massive strike campaign against military infrastructure in particular Kaliningrad whilst also targeting Russian launch points close to the borders of the Baltics.
-2nd If Russia decided to launch a armoured attack on a Baltic state NATO forces would meet these attacks via setting up a grey zone on the border aimed at slowly Russian offences and delivering heavy losses with drones and other autonomous systems first in order to stop the momentum of assaults first and then counter attack with armoured brigades.
-3rd Once an assault was stopped NATO would form an airbridge and begin to target Russian military infrastructure at a long range with missiles and drones deep into the country.

[Jesús Fernández-Villaverde @JesusFerna7026]

Last week I posted a new paper with Patrick Norrick: “Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World.”

We chose the title deliberately. No society in history has experienced the fertility levels now seen in South Korea, China, Thailand, Colombia, Chile, and many other countries. Our knowledge of the causes (and of the economic consequences) remains far more limited than most public discussion acknowledges. Much of what we write is, at best, educated conjecture.

The paper also struggles against a space limit. We wrote 20,000 words, far from the 250,000 or so we would need to address some issues in more detail (if I had the time and resources to hide away for a year, I could do that, but not now). That means some ideas are only sketched.

Nonetheless, we emphasize several important points.

First, fertility has fallen very fast everywhere: rich and poor countries, east and west, north and south, conservative and liberal societies, religious and non-religious societies (with the exception of the Jewish population of Israel; fertility has also collapsed among the Muslim population within the pre-1967 borders), you name it. Even in sub-Saharan Africa we see fast and unprecedented drops in fertility (alas, from a high initial level).

Second, and this is really interesting, the fertility collapse has been concentrated in poor and lower-middle-income countries much more than in rich countries. By now, income per capita and fertility are positively correlated within OECD countries. We conjecture this will hold globally in a few decades.

Third, and related to the second point, the fertility collapse has been concentrated among poor and lower-middle-income women within countries. In countries such as the U.S., the rich and highly educated now have more children than the poor and less educated.

Fourth, we document why we do not understand the data from the U.N. World Population Prospects. See, for example, Tables A.1 and A.2.

Fifth, we explain why some proposed mechanisms struggle when confronted with the data.

A more subtle point is at work here. Many commentators do not seem to understand the difference between proximate causes and ultimate causes. Yes, births might have gone down because fewer women are in long-run relationships. That is the proximate cause. But you need to explain why fewer women are in long-run relationships (the ultimate cause), and saying that they spend more years in school, to take one example, does not get us very far. Why do they spend more years in school? Once you start down the whole chain of reasoning, things become much harder than they seem.

The paper can be found here:

https://t.co/VrCHr0lBPa

Comments always welcome!

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

By threatening to bomb Oman — a longtime U.S. ally with nearly 200 years of diplomatic ties and active military cooperation — Trump just became the first American president in history to openly threaten to bomb one of our own partners.

This is fucking insane. Treating a friendly Gulf nation the same way you'd threaten an actual enemy isn't tough leadership; it's the deranged, reality-detached ranting of a man who has completely lost the plot.

There are no grown-ups in this regime, only loyalists unwilling to put the brakes on a president who is obviously in the depths of a psychological breakdown.

[Roman Sheremeta 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @rshereme]

Something very strange is happening across Europe.

In the span of a single week, NATO countries have seen a remarkable series of incidents involving ammunition production, energy infrastructure, military facilities, and russian intelligence operations.

Let me start with what we know.

🇵🇱 POLAND

On 7 August, Polish security services detained a russian citizen, recruited by russian intelligence, whose task was to execute a man holding both American and Ukrainian citizenship – in Warsaw.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced it yesterday. According to him, this is the first time someone acting on russian orders has tried to kill an American citizen on the territory of another NATO country.

🇩🇪 GERMANY

On 6 August, a drone carrying explosives was found near a runway at Leipzig/Halle airport – next to a Ukrainian Antonov Airlines cargo aircraft. Two days later, two drones were spotted over the Bundeswehr base at Mechernich.
Also not a rumor.

🇮🇹 ITALY

A fire in the powder compression department at the KNDS Ammo Italy plant in Colleferro, southeast of Rome, was followed by a massive explosion. No one was killed. The plant produces 155 mm artillery ammunition supplied to Ukraine through European partners.

🇳🇱 NETHERLANDS

Within a few hours at Europe’s largest port: a transformer fire, a major power failure, an emergency shutdown at the ExxonMobil refinery in Botlek, and then an explosion at the Gunvor Energy refinery and terminal that killed one worker and injured six.

I wouldn’t be surprised if russia is responsible for all these “accidents”.

I wrote about this problem two years ago. Back then, Europe was already experiencing an extraordinary wave of suspicious incidents:
🇱🇹 IKEA set on fire in Vilnius.
🇬🇧 An arson attack on a Ukraine-linked warehouse in London.
🇩🇪 Sabotage plots against military and industrial targets in Germany.
🇨🇿 Attempts to attack infrastructure in the Czech Republic.
🇪🇪 An attack on the car of Estonia’s interior minister.
🚆 Attempts to disrupt European railway systems.
📦 And later, incendiary devices sent through European logistics networks – including devices that detonated or ignited in Germany, Poland and Britain.

At the time, people could argue these were isolated incidents.

Today, we know much more. European investigators and courts have connected multiple sabotage operations directly to networks organized or coordinated by russian intelligence.
The pattern was real. It was simply diagnosed late.

That is the design. Hybrid war works by staying below the threshold at which any single incident forces a response. Every event, taken alone, is deniable. Only the sequence gives it away.
So when another extraordinary cluster of explosions, fires, drones, power failures, and intelligence operations appears across Europe in one week, perhaps we should stop treating every incident as if it exists in a vacuum.

Europe no longer has the luxury of automatically assuming accidents and coincidence.

Russia is waging a hybrid war against Europe. Sabotage. Arson. Cyberattacks. Assassination plots. GPS interference. Attacks on logistics and critical infrastructure.

These are not theoretical threats. They have already happened.

[Marcos Agustín @marcosagusstinn]

🇪🇺 American outperformance is an illusion.

US growth is debt-fuelled.

🔸 Real GDP since 2019 US +15%, EU +7%.

🔸 Cumulative deficits US ~58%, EU ~25% of GDP.

🔸 US debt-to-GDP has risen ~14%, versus only ~5% in the EU.

🔸 ~33 pp more deficit for only ~8 pp more growth.

America’s economic lead nearly disappears in PPP terms.

The US cannot sustain this trajectory and it is already a structural fiscal problem

Europe must build a common Treasury and redirect trillions of European households’ US investments into European markets.

[Hayden @the_transit_guy]

“We aren’t the Netherlands!”

Neither was the Netherlands!

[Guillaume Gau @guillaume_ggc]

Bien joué à Renault, le pari du pôle industriel made in 🇫🇷 Electricity est en passe d'être gagné. C'est notable face à l'énorme concurrence chinoise.

La production de l'usine de Douai a été multipliée par 3 en 2 ans (de 50 000 à 150 000 voitures entre 2023 et 2025), en grande partie grâce au succès de la R5.
500 personnes ont été recrutées en 4 ans, pour atteindre près de 3000 emplois au total.

L'usine de batterie voisine AESC Envision monte en cadence et devrait produire suffisamment de cellules pour équiper 75 000 véhicules assemblés à Douai en 2026. Le site a créé 1 000 emplois.

La stratégie qu'avait tracé Luca de Meo semble porter ses fruits. Les modèles à gros volume sont made in France (R5) ou made in Europe (Twingo en Slovénie)

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

For the first time in its history, Russia cannot wage war without reinforcements from North Korea. It is now preparing to deploy an additional North Korean contingent on its territory. It has also received additional ballistic missiles from North Korea. Everyone around the world must understand what this means.

This is not only about the lives of people in Ukraine, and not only about the threats we face. North Korea’s ballistic missiles and other weapons are being improved through its collaboration with Russia. The more North Korean strikes there are here in Ukraine, in Europe, the more their missiles and soldiers are used, the more they correct their shortcomings and blind spots, the greater the danger will later be for Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and other countries in the region.

That is why, when we speak about the need for joint action, for coordination and mutual support, when we speak about the need to help us strengthen our air defense, we are also, in fact, speaking about taking away North Korea’s appetite and any interest in coming here – to our land and into our skies – with its weapons in order to learn how to wage war. Everyone across the globe who respects human life must stand together in taking action to protect people.

From the evening address.

[Andreas Papadopulos @andreas_ppdp]

Možná vám uniklo:

🇪🇸🇮🇹🇩🇪 Itálie a Německo kritizují Španělsko za legalizaci nelegálních migrantů, podle FT ale dělají něco podobného.

Madrid očekával asi 500 tisíc žádostí o legalizaci pobytu, nakonec se přihlásilo 1,2 milionu lidí. Giorgia Meloniová spolu s dalšími evropskými lídry varuje, že podobné kroky fungují jako „pull factor“ pro další migraci.

Jenže Itálie za Meloniové od roku 2022 do 2025 vydala zahraničním pracovníkům 590 700 pracovních povolení a do roku 2028 plánuje dalších téměř 498 tisíc. Část expertů systém označuje za „skrytou amnestii“, protože jej v praxi využívají i lidé, kteří už v Itálii pobývají nelegálně.

Podobný mechanismus mělo i Německo: mezi lety 2022–2025 získalo stabilnější pobyt asi 90 800 lidí, kteří předtím neměli právo v zemi zůstat, ale jejich deportace byla dočasně pozastavena. Řecko zase legalizovalo přibližně 25 tisíc migrantů.

Rozdíl je tak především v rozsahu a politickém zdůvodnění: Sánchez mluví o regularizaci jako o správném kroku, Meloniová o přijímání zahraničních pracovníků jako o ekonomické nutnosti.

Podle FT je ale hranice mezi oběma přístupy v praxi téměř nulová a současná evropská politická debata je tak značně ideologicky vychýlená.

[Filip Hanka @FilipHanka]

Tohle vůbec není špatný nápad. Snižuje to prostor pro politizaci podobných organizovaných migračních vln a harmonizuje pravidla napříč EU.

[Mika Aaltola @MikaAaltola]

I call on the Commission to bring forward a legislative package on border storming situations: one European category, one procedure at the border, fast and lawful.
Finland wrote an emergency law because Europe had not written the rule. Now it is Europe’s turn.

Ceuta showed the pattern. Mass storming of a border is no longer spontaneous. It is organised, timed and aimed at the seams of our law.

Today every member state improvises its own rules for these situations. Spain has one framework, Finland another. 27 national emergency fixes are not a system. They are 27 court cases waiting to happen.

[Vojtech Pecka @VojtechPecka]

Včera: 41,5 °C v Plzni, denní rekord na všech 171 stanicích ČHMÚ, polovina stanic překonala svá historická maxima.
A globální oteplování zrychluje.

Přípomínka, kdo vám neříkal pravdu.

Kniha Václava Klause "Modrá nikoliv zelená planeta":
"Oteplování bude těžko změřitelné" 1/n

[Michal Sirový 🇨🇿 @sssirda]

“Western Europe Is Richer Than the US“

“Germany is not poorer than the US. It has just chosen to cash out more of its productivity in the form of free time than the US has.“

HDP v paritě kupní síly na odpracovanou hodinu:
Německo 101 $
USA 100 $

Počet odpracovaných hodin ročně:
Německo 1334
USA 1702

[toomas hendrik ilves @IlvesToomas]

Going to school in the US I kept hearing about this supposedly unique “checks and balances” feature of US Governance.

A. It’s hardly unique, indeed it comes from the Frenchman Charles Montesquieu.

B. It doesn’t seem to work in the US anymore.

C. Better revise your high school civics textbooks.

D. “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore”