George Hay

Europe’s dark defence picture has a bright side. President Donald Trump’s hostility to erstwhile U.S. allies in Europe, exemplified by last Friday’s dressing down of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House, has scrambled the continent’s security arrangements. Yet leaders who gathered in London on Sunday have a consolation of sorts: the pressure to rapidly rearm gives them cover to hike taxes.

Another day, another chunky Italian bank merger. On the face of it, Thursday’s decision by $9 billion BPER to lob in a $4.5 billion all-share bid for domestic peer Banca Popolare di Sondrio (BPSO) merely represents the latest iteration of a wider saga in which other deals – like UniCredit’s 10 billion euro swoop for Banco BPM and Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s (MPS) 13 billion euro pitch for Mediobanca – are more eye-catching. Yet BPER Chief Executive Gianni Franco Papa’s gambit also inserts him in the conversation should these other deals unravel.

Rachel Reeves is sending a message. The UK finance minister on Monday booted out Marcus Bokkerink from his role chairing the national antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority. It’s squarely in keeping with her push to spur British growth, which in turn echoes what others are doing abroad. But it also sends a risky signal.

Mark Zuckerberg is, among other things, resetting his relations with Europe. Towards the end of Tuesday’s five-minute video relaxing content moderation rules, the Meta Platforms chief executive criticised European technology regulations and pledged to work with President-elect Donald Trump to “push back on governments going after American companies and pushing to censor more”. That sounds bad for the EU’s agenda to moderate content on social media – but Meta doesn’t hold all the cards.

On the face of it, 2025 is shaping up to be a stinker for renewable energy. The planet seems ever further from restricting global warming to a manageable 1.5 degrees Celsius level, and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president means that the world’s biggest economy will visibly retreat from the collective fight against climate change. Yet while the year ahead will be painful for some green power players, the wider sector may yet constitute a buying opportunity.

Britain is conducting a live experiment in what happens when a government tinkers with the tax perks of the mighty. In late October, finance minister Rachel Reeves scrapped Britain’s notorious “non-dom” rules, which had long given super-wealthy foreigners a sweet fiscal deal. The question is whether a large chunk of them now leave for low-tax hubs like Switzerland, Italy or Dubai – and how much of a financial hit that would cause.

Saudi Arabia’s main mission is to diversify its heavily oil-dependent economy. But that “Vision 2030” project is undergoing a transition of its own. The kingdom’s $950 billion Public Investment Fund (PIF), tasked by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) with delivery, is increasingly focused on a collection of relatively young domestic firms. While this segment’s value now exceeds $250 billion an

Saudi Arabia’s big shindig is getting bigger. About 4,000 delegates showed up for the desert kingdom’s first Future Investment Initiative in 2017. This year’s gathering attracted twice that number, suggesting that the country’s Vision 2030 project to shed its historical dependence on oil has gained some traction.

Artificial intelligence giants are hoovering up the world’s green energy. Trillion-dollar companies like Meta Platforms , Alphabet and Amazon.com are signing chunky supply deals for their power-hungry AI data centres. Microsoft’s 10.5 gigawatt (GW) “framework agreement” with Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management , signed in May, is a case in point. Outsourcing the power build to third parties is a

Central bankers are probably watching unfolding events in the Middle East through their fingers. Tuesday’s strike by Iran on Israel raises the risk of a robust riposte. One of the dangers facing the global economy is that the conflict makes a mess of ratesetters’ plans to loosen monetary policy.