![Comic. [Person 1 talking to a person with shoulder-length hair and a person with a white hat.] PERSON 1: I would never get an electric vehicle. Sure, they sound great, but what do you do if the battery runs out of charge? [caption] I felt pretty silly when someone finally explained tome that EVs are rechargeable.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreid6f347sqdimhkt27mkvy4xar2cl54zzczyokkzbymwrtuz22qmtq@jpeg)
Comic. [Person 1 talking to a person with shoulder-length hair and a person with a white hat.] PERSON 1: I would never get an electric vehicle. Sure, they sound great, but what do you do if the battery runs out of charge? [caption] I felt pretty silly when someone finally explained tome that EVs are rechargeable.
Electric Vehicles
xkcd.com/3214/
Arguably a "bold" move to pull off in an election year.
Our Editor interviews the boss of Anthropic, have a look. www.economist.com/insider/the-...
The top rows in Eurostat data getting more and more
The EU and Canada formally launch talks on a digitial trade agreement - see joint statement from CETA joint committee meeting policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/news/driving...
Capital markets union is all fine and well, but as long as capital markets remain tiny, the payoff from
integration will be small, too.
My leader this week in The @economist.com.
economist.com/leaders/2026...
A good thread by @nilsredeker.bsky.social but I disagree with his optimistic assessment of the @ec.europa.eu IAA. A quick thread :
Dazu gibt es doch schon zahlreiche fundierte Publikationen: Die F-35 hat keinen „Kill-Switch“, mit dem die USA Jets einfach abschalten können.
The ground-breaking 🇩🇪🇬🇧 #KensingtonTreaty is a key contribution towards security & prosperity in Europe, while also fostering people-to-people exchanges.
🇩🇪 Bundestag approved the law on the friendship treaty with a big majority today. More important than ever to stand together.
As the bloc’s population ages, pensions are a becoming a huge economic liability for the EU. At the same time, they are a gigantic wasted opportunity
Hart am Wind, der tweet.
Great, and I will continue to refrain from calling people I disagree with "ayatollahs". Everyone's happy.
The industrial-policy-cum-protectionism turn of Europe a la IAA will almost certainly harm 1 and 2 (really difficult to make a models-based and empirical pro case here), be a wash on 3 I would think, and add something to 4 (but at some cost).
So looking at Europe, the challenge is growth, decarbonisation (!), good jobs and economic resilience. Those are big challenges, each one but esp. combined. "Pure" solutions in either direction are almost certainly off.
Nah, economics is not that kind of science, whatever the critics say. I learned that from @drodrik.bsky.social a long time ago: it gives you models to think about the world and empirics from different contexts, for you to apply those to the problem at hand. That is hard.
Liberté, Egalité, Reciprocité.
Ha! Well played.
I know many people who did just that not too long ago. Admittedly, some have made a handbreak turn towards industrial policy and protectionism, and preach it with the conviction of the converted.
See! You are practically German. We all would do that.
We are using the word "trade ayatollahs" now for people who question the wisdom of the EU Com micromanaging public procurement of solar panels?
There are caveats in the regulation: if there are no suppliers from within the EU+ or *if the cost difference is over 25%* between EU and non-EU suppliers.
(It used to be that 10% were enough for resilience criteria in procurement, so that has changed.)
Subsidiarity and proportionality? Both doubtful if the regulation *forces* member states to prefer European producers in tenders.
Art 114 is harmonisation of the market. Clearly doesn't fall under that IMHO, there is no impediment to the single market that the Commission is proposing to remove. EU Com says otherwise.
Great thread.
What astonishes me is that these Buy European clauses are supposedly covered by the EU's legal powers.
My colleague Anshel Pfeffer & I write today in @economist.com on the operational success of the US-Israeli war on Iran so far, the falling rate of Iranian missile launches & the targets that are likely to be attacked in the next phase of the air campaign. www.economist.com/middle-east-...
(To be clear, there are lots of segments were people do talk!)
On which count I report success. One of the twins is Captain Hook! (The other is Pumuckl.)
Haha! I doubt it. Watch lots of Sendung mit der Maus (our Sesame Street), which I am told is available via VPN abroad (not that I would ever let my German-speaking kids watch that via VPN or anything).
Ha! But why voiceover? I thought your German was TV-ready by now.
Haha. Ich lieb alles daran.
