Final Word from Wednesday, April 23, 2025

The war in Ukraine is increasingly becoming a financial war, if it wasn't from the very beginning. CDU Chair Friedrich Merz told Handelsblatt that he has always said that there will be another financial crisis but that we just don't know when and why. Donald Trump's policies, he added, increase the risk that it will come sooner than expected, and we Europeans need to have a convincing response to it. His response? Sharply higher debt to pay for rearmament, aide to Ukraine, infrastructure and climate measures. Czech PM Petr Fiala told the Financial Times that the Russian threat has forced him to drop his long-standing opposition to a greater leadership role for large states like Germany and France. So instead of preparing for the financial crisis that Merz says is inevitable, Fiala is following Merz's lead by digging a deeper financial hole and blaming it on Trump and Vladimir Putin. When Vít Rakušan said there is "only one security," he completely overlooked the equally important financial kind. [ Czech Republic national security public safety FT chancellor Interior minister min. STAN ]