Just before 1am on October 24, I filed an article summarising the tumultuous events of the just-concluded European Council – where Belgium, despite everyone’s expectations to the contrary (including my own), had thwarted the EU’s push to hand €140 billion in Russian cash to Ukraine.
“Europe discovers De Wever is harder to convince than Trump,” read the provocative – but accurate – headline. The basic argument was that, while the intermittently pro-Moscow US president had aligned himself with the bloc by slapping sanctions on Russia earlier that week, EU leaders had, ironically, failed to persuade Belgium’s staunchly pro-Kyiv leader to follow suit.
The headline was so catchy that it caused something of a national stir. It was quickly picked up by Belga, Belgium’s national news agency, and reprinted in multiple national media outlets, including Le Soir, La Dernière Heure, and VRT NWS.
It was also retweeted by Paul Magnette, leader of the French-speaking Belgian socialist party and a fierce critic of De Wever’s brand of right-wing Flemish nationalism.
“De Wever as the new European Orbán,” Magnette thundered, referring to Hungary’s unashamedly pro-Moscow prime minister. “While all of Europe is finally ready to seize Russian assets as a sanction against Putin, Bart De Wever is blocking alone against everyone!”
Within hours, however, De Wever’s five-party coalition government had rallied around their prime minister.
Georges-Louis Bouchez, leader of the liberal French-language Reformist Movement (MR) party, said he “totally agreed” with De Wever’s actions.
Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot, of the centrist party Les Engagés, similarly noted that it was “entirely legitimate” for the premier to demand that the legal and financial risks associated with the so-called “reparation loan” – which would harness immobilised Russian sovereign assets held in Euroclear, a Brussels-based clearing house – be shared among EU countries.
Why do I tell this story? Not, I assure you, to tout my own headline-writing ability. (The article’s basic premise and title were, in fact, the brainchild of my co-author, Eddy – whose own newsletter is only marginally better than mine.) Nor is it to highlight my own journalistic impact. (If you’re sceptical, just ask my 124 Twitter followers – half of whom, I suspect, are bots.)
Rather, my point is that the article – which also depicted De Wever as a “recalcitrant Flemish nationalist” (a characterisation for which I must, unfortunately, take sole credit) – likely exacerbated Belgium’s already profound political divisions and, in doing so, probably made it harder for his government to back down.
The article is also, arguably, a symptom of a broader malaise.
Many journalists – including myself – have failed to write about the reparation loan saga in a fully objective manner. Overwhelmingly, we want the loan to go ahead. Ironically, however, our failure to conceal our bias is probably making it harder for us to get our wish.
Indeed, journalists’ harmful impact on ongoing EU negotiations with the Belgians is increasingly being recognised by European officials. “I think this is something best dealt with in a closed room rather than at press conferences,” said one senior diplomat.
Political hacktivism
EU policymakers, of course, are not immune from criticism either. In fact, politicians have flagrantly used the media’s megaphone to proselytise in favour of the loan ever since Ursula von der Leyen announced it just over two months ago.
The most notable example of this was German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ill-fated decision to publish an op-ed in support of the scheme in the Financial Times in late September.
The article – published just weeks after De Wever, an avowed Germanophile and fluent German speaker, had enjoyed a friendly visit to Merz in Berlin – left the Belgian leader feeling deeply resentful and even betrayed, according to multiple EU diplomats and officials.
It also caused De Wever to initially refuse to even consider the proposal. “Taking Putin’s money and leaving the risks with [Belgium]: that’s not going to happen, let me be very clear about that,” he said.
This inauspicious start, however, has not dampened national capitals’ – or, apparently, the FT’s – enthusiasm for pressuring Belgium to acquiesce to the scheme. In fact, barely a fortnight after Merz’s op-ed, the FT published an article headlined: “EU pressure builds on Belgium to allow use of Russia’s frozen assets.”
The piece, which was based almost entirely on quotes from anonymous officials, was obviously not solely intended to be a mere report on current political events. In fact, it would have been surprising if it was: At a summit just days earlier in Copenhagen, De Wever had persuaded many EU officials – including von der Leyen herself – that his concerns about the need for risk-sharing were largely legitimate.
Rather, the main purpose of the FT article (and, especially, its headline) was, almost certainly, self-fulfilling: to create pressure on Belgium so as to make it acquiesce to the scheme.
Unfortunately, this rather unsubtle form of journalistic activism – and other, even cruder ones, such as Politico’s efforts to portray De Wever as an EU “bad boy”, alongside Orbán and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico – also failed to yield the desired result: as was brutally illustrated by last month’s summit in Brussels.
A doveish shift
Since the late October summit, a discernible discrepancy has opened up between policymakers and journalists regarding how best to assuage Belgium’s concerns.
Germany, in particular, appears to have recognised that Merz’s initial op-ed was probably ill-advised and, accordingly, has significantly softened its approach.
“We are… taking very seriously – and I want to emphasise this – the concerns expressed by the Belgian government,” German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said ahead of a meeting of EU finance ministers earlier this week.
A similarly doveish shift is noticeable in Denmark, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency and whose prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, staunchly backed the loan in a September interview with the FT. (“What is the alternative?” she asked.)
It is only “natural” for ministers to discuss “options and … the difficulties connected to any of those options”, Denmark’s Economy Minister Stephanie Lose told reporters on Thursday. “We’re talking [about] a lot of money,” she added, whilst noting that the loan nevertheless remains “the best way forward.”
Lose’s remarks came literally minutes before von der Leyen – who has previously refused to publicly contemplate alternatives to the loan since last month’s summit – officially unveiled three distinct options, including the reparation loan, to plug Kyiv’s colossal budget gap for 2026 and 2027.
Admittedly, von der Leyen did not hide her clear preference for the reparation loan, which she hailed as “the most effective way to sustain Ukraine’s defence and its economy.”
(The Commission also revealed its bias in more subtle ways. In particular, it appears to have made one of the options – namely, issuing joint EU debt – deliberately more difficult by requiring member states to borrow against the headroom of the EU budget, which will necessitate the unanimous approval of member states, rather than allowing them to borrow via an off-budget mechanism – which would only require the backing of a “qualified majority” of national capitals.)
Still, the conciliatory stance among EU leaders and ministers is becoming increasingly evident. In fact, it already seems to be bearing fruit: De Wever himself met with von der Leyen on Friday to discuss the loan– the first (actual) high-level meeting since the summit.
Media matters
Will the media follow suit? The early signs aren’t promising.
Politico, bizarrely, appears to have convinced itself that the Commission “is using the spectre of joint debt to scare Belgium straight” – despite the fact that De Wever himself expressed support for issuing common debt after last month’s summit. (As a Belgian might put it: one wonders whether the news outlet still has toutes ses frites dans le même sachet.)
Meanwhile, the FT – which got hold of a leaked copy of the Commission’s “options paper” last week – has claimed that the Commission has told member states that they “must pay up to €5.6 billion a year in interest” if the reparation loan doesn’t go ahead.
But as the FT’s own reporting makes clear, the Commission has claimed no such thing. In particular, the EU executive’s third option to finance Kyiv – in addition to the reparation loan and joint debt – involves EU capitals providing bilateral grants to Ukraine, and thus wouldn’t require EU capitals to pay interest on any common debt.
Moreover, the €5.6 billion figure is based on the assumption that the EU issues €140 billion in joint debt. In fact, the EU would most likely only raise the $65 billion (€55 billion) required to keep Ukraine afloat over the next two years, before Kyiv’s financing needs are covered by the EU’s next long-term budget from 2028.
Lessons
To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with media advocacy – including advocacy in favour of the reparation loan. My colleague Simon has written an excellent op-ed defending the loan for Euractiv, which I urge you all to read.
Indeed, media advocacy is not just politically healthy, but crucial: Journalists have a special responsibility to hold power to account and push for policies they believe are in the public interest.
However, such advocacy does become a problem in certain specific cases, two of which are relevant here.
First, it is a problem in principle when this advocacy is presented as objective news, rather than as opinion – a tendency which is, sadly, becoming increasingly prevalent and which is likely contributing to the public’s growing distrust of mainstream media. Second, it is a problem when these efforts are tactically backfiring – as in this instance my own experience suggests they are.
Journalists, of course, are an incredibly stubborn bunch (I certainly am – just ask my editors). Convincing them that their actions are improper, or self-defeating, is likely to be much harder than it was for EU to persuade Trump to sanction Russia – or, for that matter, than it will be to convince De Wever to back the loan.
Economy News Roundup
Reparation loan ‘most effective’ way to support Ukraine, says von der Leyen. The European Commission chief unveiled three distinct options for supporting Ukraine’s war effort on Thursday, but reiterated her preference for using immobilised Russian sovereign assets to fund Kyiv despite staunch Belgian resistance. The so-called reparations loan is “the clearest way to make Russia understand that time is not on its side,” von der Leyen said. “We will show that, if needed, we are in this for the long haul.” Read more.
Reparation loan ‘most effective’ way to support Ukraine, says von der Leyen
Ursula von der Leyen unveiled three distinct options for supporting Ukraine’s war effort on Thursday,…
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