Essays

Spain Is Leading the Way on Perpetual Bonds

  • April 22, 2020
When the European Council’s virtual summit convenes on April 23 to address how the European Union should cope with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, it should consider the Spanish government’s submission carefully. Indeed, it should be the first item on the meeting’s agenda.

The EU Should Issue Perpetual Bonds

  • April 20, 2020
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that Europe will need about €1 trillion ($1.1 trillion) to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. This money could be used to establish a European Recovery Fund. But where will the money come from?

Pandemic Requires Comprehensive Debt Standstills

  • Bloomberg Opinion
  • April 16, 2020
By: George Soros and Chris Canavan The Covid-19 pandemic is a one-two financial punch for developing economies. Not only has it put extraordinary pressure on the budgets of governments, which need to ramp up public health spending and prop up their reeling economies, but it has also caused a sharp exodus of capital from emerging markets.

Europe Must Stand with Turkey over Putin’s War Crimes in Syria

  • Financial Times
  • March 5, 2020
Since the beginning of its intervention in Syria in September 2015, Russia has not only sought to keep in place its most faithful Arab ally, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. It has also wanted to regain the regional and global influence that it lost since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Europe Must Recognize China for What It Is

  • February 11, 2020
Neither the European public nor European political and business leaders fully understand the threat presented by Xi Jinping’s China. Although Xi is a dictator who is using cutting-edge technology in an effort to impose total control on Chinese society, Europeans regard China primarily as an important business partner.

Mark Zuckerberg Should Not Be in Control of Facebook

  • New York Times
  • January 31, 2020
At a dinner last week in Davos, Switzerland, I was asked if I thought Facebook was behaving more responsibly today than it did during the 2016 presidential election. “Not at all,” I answered. “Facebook helped Trump to get elected and I am afraid that it will do the same in 2020.”

Remarks delivered at the World Economic Forum

  • Davos, Switzerland
  • January 23, 2020
We live at a transformational moment in history. The survival of open societies is endangered and we face an even greater crisis: climate change. It is threatening the survival of our civilization. These twin challenges have inspired me to announce the most important project of my life here tonight.

Will Trump Sell Out the U.S. on Huawei?

  • Wall Street Journal
  • September 9, 2019
The greatest—and perhaps only—foreign policy accomplishment of the Trump administration has been the development of a coherent and genuinely bipartisan policy toward Xi Jinping ’s China. The administration rightly declared Beijing a strategic rival and placed Huawei, China’s multinational telecommunications giant, on the Commerce Department’s so-called “entity list” as a national-security threat.

Europe’s Silent Majority Speaks Out

  • Project Syndicate
  • June 7, 2019
What voters said in last month’s European Parliament election is that they want to preserve the values on which the European Union was founded. But can Europe’s leaders carry out the radical institutional reforms that voters also want? Last month’s elections to the European Parliament produced better results than one could have expected, and for a simple reason: the silent pro-European majority has spoken.