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Cela fait un certain temps que je voulais écrire un article sur les destins de la Russie et de l’Ukraine depuis le début du conflit en 2014. Le fil conducteur est que l’Ukraine a drastiquement réduit ses échanges commerciaux avec la Russie, depuis 2014, sans jamais les compenser par une augmentation des échanges commerciaux avec l’Europe. Cela a eu comme conséquence involontaire que l’Europe a dû injecter des sommes importantes en Ukraine juste pour empêcher sa monnaie de s’effondrer alors que la guerre se poursuivait. Pendant ce temps, la Russie a diversifié ses échanges commerciaux avec les pays non-européens, de sorte que sa balance extérieure est aussi solide aujourd’hui qu’elle l’était en 2014, ce qui lui procure les liquidités dont elle a besoin pour soutenir l’effort de guerre.

Points importants :

• L’Ukraine a exporté 24% de moins et importé 46% de plus en 2025 qu’en 2014. La guerre a fait grimper les importations alors que les exportations ne se sont jamais remises de la signature de l’ALECA et ont été entravées par l’effort de guerre.
• Le déficit commercial béant que l’Ukraine a creusé depuis le début de la guerre a exercé une pression accrue sur les sponsors européens pour qu’ils fournissent le capital dont l’Ukraine a besoin pour empêcher l’effondrement de sa monnaie, en plus de fournir des fonds pour répondre à ses besoins budgétaires.
• Ce défi de financement pour l’Europe persistera après la fin de la guerre, tant que l’Ukraine ne sera pas autosuffisante en stimulant ses exportations et/ou en attirant suffisamment d’investissements étrangers pour compenser ses déficits commerciaux.
• La force des exportations russes et ses excédents commerciaux constants n’ont pas été affectés par la guerre. Après le début de la crise ukrainienne, la Russie a commencé à diversifier ses principales exportations d’énergie hors d’Europe, ce qui lui a permis de résister à la réduction progressive de ses exportations vers l’Europe. En effet, la Russie a tiré une énorme manne, en 2022, de la flambée des prix de l’énergie. Il n’y a aucune preuve que les sanctions aient eu un impact significatif sur le modèle d’exportation russe.
• La Russie avait déjà commencé à réaccumuler des réserves de change après l’effondrement des prix du pétrole fin 2014, jusqu’avant le début de la guerre. Suite à l’immobilisation des 300 milliards de dollars de réserves russes en Europe, la Russie a commencé à accumuler des réserves en or, pour sanctionner les bénéfices futurs. La Russie dispose désormais de réserves liquides de plus de 420 milliards de dollars, ce qui signifie que l’immobilisation de ses réserves de devises étrangères n’est plus un facteur limitant sur le plan économique.

Analyse détaillée

Le modèle d’exportation de la Russie, dans lequel elle enregistre constamment d’importants excédents commerciaux, lui a permis de générer les réserves de devises étrangères et d’or qui ont sans aucun doute contribué à financer la guerre en Ukraine. Le déficit commercial de l’Ukraine s’est creusé depuis le début de la guerre, nécessitant des injections continues de capitaux européens pour empêcher l’effondrement de sa monnaie.

Cela aide à expliquer que la Russie puisse soutenir la guerre plus longtemps ; elle n’a pas besoin de contracter de nouvelles dettes importantes, sa dette restant faible, à 20%. L’Ukraine ne peut financer la guerre et maintenir ses comptes nationaux en équilibre qu’avec de l’argent européen qui ne peut être garanti à long terme et qui, de toute façon, a augmenté la dette ukrainienne de 20% du PIB en moyenne chaque année depuis le début de la guerre. Ce n’est pas durable.

L’Accord de libre-échange approfondi et complet de 2014 a désavantagé l’Ukraine car il forçait le pays à ne plus commercer avec la Russie.

Le point de départ est la signature par l’Ukraine d’un Accord de libre-échange approfondi et complet avec l’Europe, le 27 juin 2014.

Herman van Rompuy, alors président du Conseil européen, déclarait alors que « des liens politiques et économiques plus forts apporteront plus de stabilité et de prospérité à l’ensemble du continent européen ».

Au même moment, le président Porochenko déclarait « au cours des derniers mois, l’Ukraine a payé le prix le plus élevé possible pour réaliser son rêve européen ».

Car le véritable cout de cet accord a été supporté par l’Ukraine qui a vu ses exportations s’effondrer et ses importations augmenter, car elle avait fait le « choix souverain » de ne plus maintenir ses liens commerciaux avec la Russie.

Ce fut un choix catastrophiquement mauvais. La Russie représentait environ 25% des exportations ukrainiennes avant 2014 et ce chiffre était tombé à moins de 5% en 2021, avant le début de la guerre. L’Ukraine n’a pas comblé cet écart en augmentant le volume de ses exportations vers l’Europe, qui sont restées en grande partie inchangées.

De plus, le même schéma peut être observé en Géorgie, qui n’a également connu aucune augmentation réelle de ses exportations vers l’UE après la signature de l’ALECA. L’UE utilise un certain nombre de mécanismes de règlement des différends commerciaux et d’autres barrières non tarifaires pour bloquer la croissance des importations en provenance des pays partenaires de l’ALECA.

Ainsi, en encourageant l’Ukraine à commercer avec l’Europe et non avec la Russie, l’Europe a imposé une perte économique sèche à l’Ukraine qui avait pris la décision souveraine de renoncer à une relation commerciale auparavant rentable, pour poursuivre un objectif politique d’intégration à l’UE.

De plus, depuis le début de la guerre, les importations ukrainiennes ont augmenté, entraînant une augmentation progressive de son déficit commercial. Cette augmentation des importations a été causée par le fait que l’Ukraine achète des armes aux États-Unis en utilisant des fonds européens et nationaux empruntés. Ainsi, l’Ukraine emprunte de l’argent pour créer un déficit commercial qui doit être comblé par de nouveaux afflux de capitaux.

Entraînée dans un déficit commercial persistant et croissant par la guerre, l’Ukraine a besoin d’injections continues de fonds étrangers pour empêcher l’effondrement de sa monnaie.

Le graphique ci-dessous montre la croissance du déficit commercial de l’Ukraine avec la croissance correspondante des recettes classées comme « Revenu secondaire » dans sa balance des paiements trimestrielle. Ces entrées de capitaux classés comme « Revenus secondaires » sont des injections en provenance d’Europe (principalement) qui sont vitales pour renforcer les réserves de change de l’Ukraine et ainsi éviter une ruée sur la devise. Le point clé est que le financement étranger à l’Ukraine est plus qu’un simple événement fiscal. Il s’agit d’un mécanisme de soutien essentiel dans les circonstances où l’Ukraine est incapable d’attirer suffisamment d’investissements étrangers en temps de guerre.

La Russie n’a tout simplement pas été confrontée au même défi, choisissant plutôt de diversifier ses exportations vers d’autres pays alors que l’Europe fermait progressivement ses échanges commerciaux. Les sanctions n’ont pas entamé son commerce.

Le graphique ci-dessous illustre de manière élégante comment le commerce de la Russie a changé et évolué depuis. Les exportations russes ont connu des pics et des creux depuis 2014, bien que les creux aient souvent été causés par des événements mondiaux tels que les effondrements des prix du pétrole de 2014 et 2016 et le COVID.

Le déclenchement de la guerre en Ukraine a provoqué une énorme manne de revenus d’exportation car le prix du pétrole a bondi. Malgré l’imposition de milliers de sanctions par les pays occidentaux après le début de la guerre, les exportations russes sont restées très résistantes. Cela est dû à la diversification par la Russie de ses exportations vers les pays d’Asie.

En bref, malgré les nombreux gros titres dans les médias occidentaux traditionnels sur les sanctions « entravant l’économie de guerre de la Russie« , il n’y a aucune preuve substantielle que cela ait été le cas.

Le modèle d’exportation russe continue d’être une salle des machines qui lui fournit les liquidités dont elle a besoin pour financer la guerre sans contracter de nouvelles dettes importantes. Cela lui donne un avantage significatif sur l’Ukraine et ses soutiens européens dans cette « guerre d’usure« .

La Russie a accumulé des réserves depuis le début de la guerre pour compenser l’immobilisation de 300 milliards de dollars en devises par les pays occidentaux. La Russie investit désormais dans l’or pour protéger ses actifs.

Enfin, je commente depuis un certain temps que la Russie a entamé le processus d’accumulation de réserves de change en 2017 alors qu’elle modifiait sa politique monétaire pour adopter un rouble faible afin de maximiser les revenus en roubles tirés des exportations et qu’elle entreprenait un certain nombre d’achats en dollars via le ministère des Finances. Vous pouvez voir cette accumulation de réserves dans le graphique ci-dessous.

Après le début de la guerre, après l’importante manne de revenus tirés des exportations en 2022 et des chiffres commerciaux toujours solides par la suite, la Russie a continué à accumuler des réserves. Cependant, suite au gel de ses avoirs en devises, elle a plutôt choisi de stocker ses réserves en or, pour les protéger des sanctions.

Si la Russie souhaite évidemment récupérer ses avoirs immobilisés après la fin de la guerre (gros point d’interrogation), elle a néanmoins constitué un important coussin financier à hauteur de plus de 420 milliards de dollars de réserve en plus de celle qui reste gelée.

Ces importantes réserves contribuent sans aucun doute à garantir l’effort de guerre russe sans avoir besoin de gros emprunts. La dette de la Russie représente aujourd’hui environ 20% de son PIB.

En 2021, la dette de l’Ukraine s’élevait à environ 49% de son PIB. Aujourd’hui, elle représente environ 110% de son PIB.

Publié à l’origine par The Peacemonger.
Traduction: Le Saker Francophone

Ukraine is heading into 2027 with a rising fiscal gap. Growth forecasts have been cut, inflation is rising, and the need for external financing seems to just keep going up. The economy is being squeezed by a labor market drained by mobilization and emigration, energy infrastructure has been decimated, and

• Several billionaires have left or plan to leave California over its proposed wealth tax.
• The departures could mean that the state loses more in the long term than the one-time tax brings in.
• That's according to a working paper shared by a pair of Stanford economists.

Supporters of California’s proposed billionaire tax say it could raise about $100 billion.

But a new paper puts the takings closer to $30 billion and warns that the state could ultimately lose money if its richest residents flee.

Proposition 40, which goes before voters on November 3, would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires who were California residents on January 1, 2026, with their wealth valued at the end of the year. Most of the tax proceeds would go toward healthcare.

In a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper released this week, Stanford economists Benjamin Jaros and Joshua Rauh estimate the tax would collect between $28 billion and $36 billion — far short of supporters' $100 billion projection.

They point to billionaires moving away before the residency cutoff. Their estimate also assumes legal challenges could prevent California from collecting some of the remaining tax.

The authors identified seven billionaires reported to have left the state before the cutoff: Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, investor Peter Thiel, director Steven Spielberg, Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick, investor David Sacks, and car loan tycoon Don Hankey.

Together, they accounted for nearly 30% of the wealth the researchers considered potentially taxable. The researchers noted that moving out of the state does not, by itself, settle someone's tax residency.

The authors' bigger concern is what happens afterward. California would collect the wealth tax only once, but billionaires who leave could stop paying state income taxes year after year.

If those departures and lost payments last, their model projects an average net loss of $38.9 billion. The researchers said they ran 100,000 simulations, and that in 85% of scenarios, losses outweighed revenues from the tax.

The forecast depends on who actually left and whether they stay away.

California's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office offers a less stark view. It expects tens of billions in tax revenue and a possible ongoing drop of less than $1 billion a year in billionaire income-tax payments.

Brin is fighting the proposal on another front, too. He has given at least $102 million to Building a Better California, a group backing efforts to defeat or block Proposition 40. Two competing measures on the same ballot could keep Proposition 40 from taking effect, even if voters approve it.

While some billionaires have been vocal in their opposition to the tax, some have welcomed it. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CBS News last month that being able to pay an estimated $8 billion over five years would be a "privilege."

In filings released this week, it was revealed that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had considered moving out of California due to the tax, but ultimately decided to stay. To ensure that Zuckerberg has sufficient liquidity to pay without diluting his control of the company, Meta created a new class of shares.

Many economists back the plans. Six Nobel Prize winners — Daron Acemoglu, Abhijit Banerjee, Peter Diamond, Esther Duflo, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz — signed a letter in September calling the proposal the "first opportunity for the people to start reining in the power of billionaires."

At the time, Acemoglu said it could counter years of tax avoidance by the very wealthy and curb their political influence. He said that while the proposal isn’t perfect, it "deserves support."

Sono sempre di più i viaggiatori che scelgono la propria destinazione lasciandosi ispirare dalle ambientazioni viste sul grande e piccolo schermo. Per questo motivo, negli ultimi anni, anche in Italia borghi, isole, città d’arte e paesaggi naturali sono diventati mete ambite soprattutto perché sono stati set di film e serie tv.

Si chiama cine-turismo (o screen tourism), ed è un fenomeno che anche nel nostro Paese sta acquisendo sempre più valore.

Quanto vale il cine-turismo in Italia

Secondo Jfc Tourism & Management, il cine-turismo in Italia genera un giro d’affari stimato in:

• circa 600 milioni di euro all’anno;
• 1,3 milioni di pernottamenti direttamente collegati alle produzioni audiovisive;
• oltre 11 milioni di visite giornaliere nei luoghi diventati riconoscibili grazie a film e serie televisive.

A livello internazionale, da come è emerso dal report annuale Unpack di Expedia Group, quasi un viaggiatore su cinque nel mondo ha prenotato un viaggio dopo aver visto una destinazione in un film o in una serie televisiva.

Una parte dei turisti organizza soggiorni di più giorni per esplorare le location, mentre altri inseriscono una singola tappa cinematografica in un itinerario già programmato. Entrambe le tipologie di visita possono generare ricavi, anche se con effetti differenti sulla durata della permanenza, sulla spesa media e sulla distribuzione dei benefici tra le attività locali.

Quali sono le mete più popolari

Tra le destinazioni italiane che hanno conquistato visibilità internazionale grazie a film e serie televisive c’è sicuramente Favignana, in Sicilia. L’isola, anche grazie alla popolarità raggiunta con The Odyssey, di Christopher Nolan, ha visto le prenotazioni aumentare molto questa estate. Le prime stime, inoltre, individuano in questo interesse un potenziale economico anche nei prossimi anni.

Un’altra meta particolarmente nota è Taormina, sempre in Sicilia, che ha ottenuto nuova visibilità internazionale grazie alla serie The White Lotus. Il San Domenico Palace e gli scorci panoramici della città hanno contribuito in particolare a rafforzare l’immagine della destinazione presso un pubblico interessato a viaggi di lusso, gastronomia ed esperienze esclusive.

Restando ancora in Sicilia, meritano di essere menzionate anche Scicli e Punta Secca, nel Ragusano, dove il turismo è spinto da anni ormai dal successo de Il commissario Montalbano.

Tra le destinazioni che stanno beneficiando della visibilità televisiva c’è anche la Calabria, con località come Tropea e Isola di Capo Rizzuto coinvolte nelle riprese di Sandokan, mentre Matera è diventata una scenografia riconoscibile dopo aver ospitato produzioni internazionali come No Time to Die, il film della saga di James Bond.

Infine c’è Roma, che da Vacanze romane (con Audrey Hepburn e Gregory Peck) fino agli ultimi lavori internazionali (come To Rome with Love di Woody Allen), continua a esercitare un forte richiamo sugli appassionati che vogliono ritrovare le ambientazioni della pellicola.

In arrivo nuovi contributi pubblici per il cine-turismo

Per sfruttare meglio le opportunità offerte dal cine-turismo, il ministero del Turismo, in collaborazione con Enit, ha promosso il progetto “Che spettacolo l’Italia! What a movie Italia is!”.

L’iniziativa prevede contributi pubblici per realizzare filmati di qualità cinematografica della durata compresa tra cinque e dieci minuti, destinati a essere distribuiti insieme a film per le sale e a serie televisive. Il progetto prevede un finanziamento fino a 400mila euro per i produttori, che si aggiungono agli aiuti già esistenti, con l’obiettivo di trasformare i set cinematografici e televisivi in strumenti di promozione delle destinazioni italiane, attraverso la produzione di contenuti ad hoc.

The European Parliament on Thursday (22 October) backed a three-year delay to the EU’s methane rules for oil and gas importers, two years more than the European Commission proposed last week.

MEPs also voted to extend the delay to European oil and gas producers, which goes beyond the commission’s plans.

The text now forms parliament’s position for negotiations with member states, whose ambassadors failed to agree on Wednesday.

Under the amendments, tabled by the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), importers would only have to prove that their oil and gas meets EU monitoring standards from 2031, instead of 2027 under the current law.

Reporting on methane intensity would also be delayed from 2028 to 2031.

A separate amendment from a cross-party group of 36 Romanian and Bulgarian MEPs, which also passed, delays reporting obligations for EU operators by three years, to 2030.

MEPs also approved an amendment, tabled by Dutch Socialist MEP Mohammed Chahim, that the extra time should not apply to oil, gas and coal from countries under EU sanctions, which in practice means Russia.

A far-right Patriots for Europe proposal to suspend the regulation altogether was rejected, as was a push by the conservative ECR group to delay parts of the rules even longer.

This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership

Four graphs that tell a bigger story

By Ian PROUD

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Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

I have wanted to write an article for sometime about the differing fates of Russia and Ukraine since the onset of the conflict in 2014. The headline is that Ukraine has never made up the difference in increased trade with Europe having cut its trade with Russia to the bone since 2014. This has inadvertently meant that Europe has had to inject significant sums of capital into Ukraine just to prevent its currency from collapsing as the war has gone on. Russia has diversified its trade away from Europe such that its export model is as strong today as it was in 2014, giving it the liquidity it needs to underwrite the war effort.

Key finding:

• Ukraine exported 24% less and imported 46% more in 2025 than in 2014. The war has driven up imports while exports never recovered from the signing of the DCFTA and have been hampered by the war effort.
• The yawning trade deficit Ukraine has built since the war started has placed greater strain on European sponsors to provide the capital Ukraine needs to prevent its currency collapsing, in addition to providing funding to meet its fiscal requirements.
• This funding challenge for Europe will persist after the war ends until Ukraine can become self-sufficient in boosting exports and/or attracting sufficient foreign investment to offset its trade deficits.
• Russia’s export strength and consistent surpluses have been unaffected by war. After the Ukraine crisis started, Russia started to diversify its major energy exports away from Europe, allowing it to weather the progressive reduction of exports to Europe. Indeed, Russia gained a huge windfall in 2022 from surging energy prices. There is no evidence that sanctions have impacted Russia’s export model in a significant way.
• Russia has already started to reaccumulate FX reserves after the oil price collapse of late 2014, until before the war started. Following the immobilisation of $300bn in Russian FX reserves, Russia started to accumulate reserves in monetary gold, to sanction-proof future earnings. Russia now has liquid reserves of over $420bn meaning the immobilisation of its foreign currency reserves is no longer an economically limiting factor.

Detailed analysis

Russia’s export model in which it runs consistently large trade surpluses has ensured it can generate the reserves of foreign currency and gold which have undoubtedly helped to bankroll the war in Ukraine. Ukraine’s trade deficit has yawned since the war started, requiring continual injections of European capital to prevent its currency from collapsing.

This helps to explain by Russia can sustain the war for longer; it doesn’t need to take on significant new debt, its debt remaining low at 20%. Ukraine can only fund the war and keep its national accounts in balance with European money that cannot be guaranteed long-term and which, in any case, has increased Ukrainian debt by an average of 20% of GDP each year since the war started. This is not sustainable.

The Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement of 2014 has disadvantaged Ukraine because it forced a choice away from trading with Russia.

The starting point for this is the signature by Ukraine of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with Europe on 27 June 2014.

Herman van Rompuy, then President of the European Council said that “stronger political and economic ties will bring greater stability and prosperity to the entire European continent.”

President Poroshenko said “over the last months, Ukraine paid the highest possible price to make her European dreams come true.”

Yet, the true price of this agreement has borne by Ukraine which saw its exports collapse and its imports increase, as it make a “sovereign choice” not to maintain trade links with Russia.

That was a catastrophically bad choice. Russia had accounted for around 25% of Ukrainian exports prior to 2014 and that figure fell to less than 5% in 2021 before the war started. Ukraine did not make up that gap by increasing the volume of exports to Europe, which have remained largely unchanged.

Indeed, this same pattern can be seen in Georgia which has also seen no real increase in exports to the EU after it signed the DCFTA. The EU uses a number of trade dispute mechanism and other non-tariff barriers to put blockages in the way of import growth from DCFTA partner countries.

So, by encouraging Ukraine to trade with Europe and not with Russia, Europe has imposed a deadweight economic loss on Ukraine which took a sovereign decision to forgo a previously profitable trade relationship, to pursue a political goal of EU integration.

Moreover, since the war started, imports into Ukraine have surged leading to a progressive ballooning of its trade deficit. This surge in imports has been caused by Ukraine purchasing weapons from the US using borrowed European and domestic funds. So, Ukraine is borrowing money to create a trade deficit that needs to be filled with further inflows of capital.

Dragged into a persistent and growth trade deficit by war, Ukraine needs continued injections of foreign funds to prevent its currency collapsing.

The graph below maps the growth in Ukraine’s trade deficit with the corresponding growth in receipts classified as Secondary Income within its quarterly balance of payments. These inflows of capital as Secondary Income are injections from Europe (principally) that are vital to shore up Ukraine’s FX reserves and so prevent a run on the currency. The key point is that foreign funding to Ukraine is more than just a fiscal event and top it. It is a vital support mechanism in circumstances where Ukraine is unable to attract sufficient inflows of foreign investment during a time of war.

Russia simply hasn’t faced the same challenge, choosing instead to diversify its exports to other countries as Europe progressively shut down trade. Sanctions haven’t dented trade.

The graph below illustrates in an elegant way how Russia’s trade has changed and evolved since. Russia’s exports have gone through peaks and troughs since 2014, although the troughs have often been caused by global events such as the 2014 and 2016 oil price collapses and COVID,

The onset of the war in Ukraine caused a huge windfall in income from exports as oil prices surged. Despite the imposition of thousands of sanctions by western nations after the war commenced, Russia’s exports have remained highly resilient. This is down to Russia’s diversification of its exports towards countries in Asia.

In short, despite many headlines in western mainstream media of sanctions ‘denting Russia’s war economy’ there is no substantive evidence that this has been the case.

Russia’s export model continues to be an engine room that provides the liquidity it needs to fund the war without taking on significant new debt. This gives it a significant advantage over Ukraine and its European backers in the ‘war of attrition’.

Russia has accumulated reserves since the war started to make up for the immobilisation of $300bn in FX by western nations. Russia now invests in monetary gold to sanction-proof its assets.

Finally, I have been commenting for some time that Russia started the process of accumulating Foreign Exchange Reserves in 2017 as it shifted its monetary policy to embrace a weak rouble to maximise rouble income from exports and as it undertook a number of dollar purchases via the Finance Ministry. You can see this reserve accumulation in the graph below.

After the war started, following the large windfall in earning from exports in 2022 and still solid trade figures after that, Russia continued to accumulate reserves. However, following the freezing of its foreign currency assets, it has chosen instead to store its reserves in monetary gold, to sanction proof them.

While Russia would undoubtedly like to see the return of its immobilised assets after the war ends (big question mark) it has nevertheless built up a significant financial buffer to the tune of over $420bn in reserve assets in addition to those assets that remain frozen.

This deep well of reserves undoubtedly helps to underwrite Russia’s war effort without the need for significant borrowing. Russia’s debt today sits at around 20% of GDP.

In 2021 Ukraine’s debt sat at around 49% of GDP. Today it sits at around 110% of GDP.

Original article: thepeacemonger.substack.com

Treasury is revising all the numbers for the mid-year budget update as economists warn of a difficult six months ahead

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Jim Chalmers has revealed December’s mid-year budget update will project weaker growth and higher unemployment, as economists warn of a difficult six months ahead for the Australian economy.

Two days after a senior Reserve Bank official foreshadowed the potential for another interest rate hike in under two weeks’ time, the treasurer in a speech on Friday morning will say “higher inflation is putting people under pressure, tighter monetary policy is weighing on domestic activity, and we can see that in the softening of the labour market”.

UK public debt crossed the £3 trillion mark for the first time at the end of September 2026, the National Statistics Office reported on Wednesday, October 21.

The accumulated public sector liabilities stood at £3.005 trillion, equivalent to €3.57 trillion, according to the provisional estimate released by the National Statistics Office. The figure represented 94 percent of UK gross domestic product and marked a historic high, the agency reported.

The balance grew by £91.7 billion compared with the level recorded twelve months earlier, about €109.074 billion, according to the provisional estimate.

RELATED: U.K. Slashes International Aid Budget by 56% to Fund Defense

Despite the nominal record, the weight of the liabilities on the economy as a whole fell by seven tenths compared with the 2025 level, the agency reported. The agency recalled that net debt exceeded £2 trillion in June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and had surpassed £1 trillion in February 2010, following the global financial crisis.

September public borrowing amounted to £24.5 billion, or €29.142 billion, and was the second highest recorded for that month, according to the National Statistics Office. Only the September 2020 figure, unadjusted for inflation, was higher. Compared with the previous year, the imbalance increased by £1.8 billion, or 7.7 percent, because spending growth outpaced income growth, the agency reported.

Central government debt interest reached £10.9 billion in September, the highest figure recorded in the ninth month of the year since monthly records began in 1997, according to the National Statistics Office.

Annual inflation stood at 3.5 percent in September, four tenths above the August figure and the largest increase since October 2025, according to the National Statistics Office. The price of goods rose 3.2 percent year on year, compared with 2.7 percent in August, while services became 3.7 percent more expensive. Core inflation, which excludes energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, advanced to 2.8 percent, two tenths more than in August.

Last week, Elsene became the fifth  municipality to vote for an end to fossil-fuel advertising, joining Saint-Gilles, Jette, Schaerbeek and Molenbeek.

Four of those five votes came in the space of just four months, and together, these municipalities are home to roughly 370,000 people: one-third of the Brussels-Capital Region’s population.

All five are making the same demand: that the Brussels region bans fossil-fuel advertising across the entire city, from metro stations to regional roads. More motions are already being tabled, and by the end of the year, a majority of Brussels’ 19 municipalities could be on record calling for a ban.

While local politicians are taking the lead, the outlook a little higher up the chain looks less promising. 

Europe’s ad town and the EU’s lobby town

Everyday tens of thousands of officials, MEPs, assistants and diplomats brave Brussels morning rush hour on their way to work on the laws that will decide whether Europe meets its climate targets.

Along the way they pass numerous temptations, bus shelters and metro walls selling them petrol cars, weekend flights and gas contracts, normalising the ongoing mass-consumption of these products. 

Once they reach their offices, they meet the same industry again, this time in person. The seven biggest oil and gas companies alone have declared lobbying budgets of almost €64m.

Fossil Free Politics research shows EU Commissioners and their cabinets had nearly 900 meetings with fossil fuel lobbyists in the last term. That’s nearly once every working day, showing just how embedded the industry is in the daily rhythm of Brussels life.

Some files come under particularly heavy pressure, with one egregious example being how a secretive alliance of eleven large multinational enterprises worked to tear down the EU’s flagship human rights and climate law last year, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).

The fossil fuel industry is currently mounting an extremely intense lobbying campaign to delay and dilute the EU Methane Emissions Regulation over the past year.

Over 80 percent of all commission meetings with external interest representatives on this regulation involved fossil fuel lobbyists, and the European Parliament is no better. All 17 MEPs who called for the methane regulation to be reopened in an April 2026 letter to the commission had met with fossil fuel lobbyists in the preceding year.

And those are only the declared figures.

Lobbyists roaming the corridors

Safe to say, the real total is almost certainly higher. According to new research by Reclaim Finance, on two out of every three days, the fossil-fuel lobbyists present at the European Parliament had no meetings scheduled with MEPs. They roam the corridors and cafés in the building, aiming to bump into the MEPs they wish to influence.

The councillors behind these fossil ad ban motions are not pretending that a few billboards will single-handedly solve the climate crisis, but they refuse to continue letting public spaces be misused by the fossil, automotive and aviation industry to freely promote their propaganda; as for the latter, especially since the advertised destinations are often precisely those places that have been the victims of severe climate disruptions..  

“The summer of 2026 was a painful awakening to the harsh reality of the consequences of the climate crisis,” said Mathias Gyselen, the Ecolo-Groen councillor who tabled Schaerbeek’s motion in September.

“Heatwaves, heat islands and heat deaths are unfortunately becoming the new normal in the city. Doing nothing is no longer an option.”

They are right. Advertising is how the fossil fuel industry keeps its social licence, presenting itself as part of the solution while expanding the very products driving the crisis.

Not just the five sub-municipalities of the Brussels capital acknowledge this, but over 70+ cities worldwide have taken steps to clear their streets from fossil fuel advertising, among them Amsterdam, Sydney, Stockholm and Edinburgh.

The problems with advertisements, and multi-million euro lobby strategies, are not just that they very much harm the planet, they are also fundamentally undemocratic. 

Residents, community groups and civil society organisations cannot match the industry’s firepower. They do not have the budgets, the staff or the open doors that put them across the table from lawmakers week after week.

Europe has dealt with this before.

‘Godfathers of climate chaos’

Tobacco lobbyists no longer get privileged access to health ministers, nor can cigarette brands buy billboards. For many similar reasons the world wants to end fossil fuels, the EU banned tobacco advertising because promoting a deadly product was incompatible with public health.

UN secretary-general António Guterres made the same comparison in 2024 when he urged every country to ban fossil fuel advertising, naming fossil-fuel companies as the “godfathers of climate chaos”

Municipal motions are not binding, so the decision now lies with the Brussels-Capital Region, which controls advertising in the metro, along regional roads and on its own infrastructure. A first obvious step is that it should listen to its municipalities and introduce a city-wide ban.

But the message is also addressed to the institutions on the other side of the Rue de la Loi.

If the streets of Europe’s capital are being cleared of fossil fuel promotion, the corridors of its institutions should be too. That means limiting the industry’s access to decision-makers, closing the revolving door, and rejecting fossil fuel sponsorship and partnerships, just as the EU did with tobacco.

The municipalities of Brussels have shown what local democracy looks like. Now it is up to the region and the EU institutions to show that Europe’s capital is not for sale; not on its billboards, and not in its corridors of power.