Christoph Swoboda

Specialized in EU Governmental Affairs following EU developments on financial services. Views expressed in tweets are my own. RTs & links ≠ endorsement

[Carl Bildt @carlbildt]

Very important and very well put remarks by 🇨🇦 PM Mark Carney. It’s time to take down the sign and speak up.

[Federal Reserve @federalreserve]

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: https://t.co/5dfrkByGyX

[Henrik Dahl @SociologenHD]

There has never been a rules-based international order. What is new is admitting it.

The American arrest of Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro (and his wife), accompanied by the use of military force, has understandably prompted many in Europe to lament what they see as a breach of the rules-based international order.

The purpose of the following reflections is to place this assumption in perspective.

If we confine ourselves to the permanent members of the UN Security Council, only the United Kingdom and France can be said to respect - more or less consistently - what Europeans refer to as “the rules-based international order.”

Russia is waging war in Ukraine in blatant violation of international law. China’s conduct in the South China Sea has no place within the framework of international law. And neither does the American arrest of Maduro.

In other words, the majority of the permanent members of the Security Council have - diplomatically speaking - a relaxed relationship with the UN Charter and other fundamental components of the rules-based international order.

That the United States, Russia, and China adhere to the principles of the rules-based international order only until they no longer do so is nothing new.

The difference lies rather in how such violations are justified. The United States continues to legitimize its actions in a normative language of human rights, responsibility, and international order - even when the arguments are thin. Russia and China, by contrast, increasingly refer openly to spheres of influence, historical entitlement, and civilizational particularities.

Russia - and before it the Soviet Union - has a long history of invading countries within its sphere of interest that failed to fall into line. China has been a member of the WTO for 25 years without ever genuinely respecting the organization’s rules. The United States, for its part, has carried out a substantial number of military operations without a UN mandate since the Second World War.

The question, therefore, is not when these three countries abandoned respect for the international order. The question is rather whether they ever truly embraced it in anything other than a rhetorical sense.

Upon closer reflection, one is compelled to conclude that “the rules-based international order” is, to a large extent, a normative phantom—one to which small and medium-sized European states have shown a particular fondness for rhetorical devotion. Much like their principal cooperative institution: the EU.

This is not to say that norms are without significance. Rules do matter—but they operate asymmetrically. They discipline the weak far more effectively than they constrain the strong.

In principle, I see nothing wrong with toasts to principles that are difficult to live up to on a daily basis.

The point of a toast is to install an ideal: a conception most people recognize and respect. If successful, this has two advantages.

First, it provides a norm to which one can appeal when it is violated. Even if one does not tell the full truth at all times, the norm of truthfulness is a good thing. It offers a starting point for legitimate criticism when a specific person, in a specific situation, is not being truthful. And that is useful.

Second, norms can, in fortunate cases, induce shame in those who violate them—and public shaming when they are caught in flagrante. No society can function without such mechanisms of control and self-control.

Seen in this light, there is of course nothing wrong with European countries - and the EU as a whole - professing their commitment to the rules-based international order.

The problem arises when Europeans genuinely and in all seriousness believe that the world is in fact governed by rules, and that violations are consistently called out and sanctioned.

Why? Fundamentally because this has little to do with reality. Because it is an illusion—and permanent illusions are dangerous.

What ultimately governs the course of world affairs is power. Toasts to the rules-based international order cannot and should not obscure that fact.

Great powers comply with rules as long as it is in their interest to do so. The moment that interest disappears, so does compliance. Small and medium-sized states can only hope that the great powers will continue to play by the rules. For if they do not—what then? Nothing. In practice, the rules become void, and the law of the strong prevails.

For this reason, the real problem with the American arrest of Maduro is not that international law has once again been set aside. Historically speaking, that is nothing new.

What is new is that Europeans still pretend to be surprised.

That great powers recognize the “rules-based international order” only when it suits them is therefore not new. What is new is merely that they are increasingly no longer bothering to conceal it.

Sex also existed before the liberalization of pornography. What was new was not that people suddenly began doing things they had never done before. What was new was that they no longer felt ashamed of it - and allowed it to become common knowledge that this is how the world actually works.

In this sense, the new international reality more closely resembles the liberalization of pornography than the emergence of wholly new and epoch-making activities in bedrooms around the world.

In a world where strong powers act openly on the basis of interest and power, weaker actors must either build real power, align themselves with power - or accept their irrelevance. Appeals to unenforced rules change nothing. Protests without sanctioning capacity change nothing. Moral outrage without material means changes nothing.

For Europe, this means that the question is no longer whether the rules-based international order has been violated. That question is irrelevant. The only relevant question is which instruments of power Europe possesses - military, economic, and strategic - and whether there is political will to use them.

If not, Europe will continue to speak the language of norms in a world that has moved on to the language of power. Elegant - but without effect.

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

I’ve been in the room with Putin. He calls Ukrainians “Russians with accents.” His real fear isn’t NATO expansion, it’s democracy expansion. It shatters his entire argument for dictatorship at home. Because if Ukrainians embrace freedom, Russians may demand the same. Clip from this weekend's talk with @AVindman at the 2025 @TexasTribune Festival.

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

Ukraine is not, and never has been, a model of clean governance. That is not why the West has spent some $400bn—and counting—to help defend it. Were Western support to falter, the only winner would be Vladimir Putin https://t.co/E8cjfPJTMI

Photo: Getty Images

[Richard Woodruff 🇺🇦 @frontlinekit]

🇪🇺 Europe, WAKE UP ⏰️

- Dovilė Šakalienė, the Defence minister for Lithuania understands russians.

[Christoph Swoboda @swobesso]

@MDoczy Well done, Michael!

[Inferam @InferamAI]

Milton Friedman illustrates market economies using a pencil.

[Stuart Lau @StuartKLau]

Pretty impressive new PR

[SEC Chair Gary Gensler Archive @GenslerArchive]

The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products.

[Igor Sushko @igorsushko]

🧵 Arnold @Schwarzenegger is the greatest orator of our time.

[Christoph Swoboda @swobesso]

@AxelVossMdEP @ZennerBXL @Parlimag Bravo, Kai! Well deserved.

[Julia Groth @GrowthMs]

Mit Gruß an @keinSpekulant, der offenbar als einziger Mensch in Deutschland den Referentenentwurf zum #Zukunftsfinanzierungsgesetz gelesen hat. https://t.co/8sX1115dHa

[Christoph Swoboda @swobesso]

@Svejk Peterlik und Herberstein?

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has been one of the best political leaders since this war started.

Here, he explains clearly and concisely why it is in our security interest to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression.

Bravo Jens!

[Christoph Swoboda @swobesso]

@tagesthemen @gudrun_engel Kleinkarierter, selbstgerechter Schwachsinn in völliger Unkenntnis der geostrategischen Sachlage. Solch ein Betrag wird nicht einmal den redaktionellen Standards der Spatzenpost gerecht. Armutszeugnis für einen öffentlich-rechtlichen Sender.
@gudrun_engel
@tagesthemen

[Christoph Swoboda @swobesso]

@leopricon Um festzustellen, ob du berechtigt bist, duty free einzukaufen?

[Mick Ryan, AM @WarintheFuture]

In the last few days, an interview given by the new Russian commander in #Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, was reported in the media. Noting that “the situation regarding the special operation is tense”, an assessment of his campaign options going forward is required. 1/25 🧵

[Christoph Swoboda @swobesso]

@MDoczy Herzlich willkommen zurück!

[Christoph Swoboda @swobesso]

Here are some ideas what to do https://t.co/j1dWE95vfB

[Christoph Swoboda @swobesso]

Why is the EU not doing more to protect its corporate and retail citizens against the oligopolistic activities of large financialmarket #datavendors in the EU, most of which are not incoporated in the
EEA anyway such as #Bloomberg, #refinitv, #LSE, #FTSE, #MSCI, #Moodys etc.?