This week: two audio essays.

Peace is coming to Budapest… whether you believe it or not. So says Philip Pilkington, our man on the ground. 

The show may be paused, but that doesn’t change the fundamentals: Trump and Putin need a meeting; they need a venue; the Russian President can’t be arrested on sight. And Hungary’s nous in positioning itself as a true neutral makes it the ideal venue. He talks through the implications of the next phase of bargaining. 

Meanwhile, from the front pages to the middle of the paper: Andrew Collingwood says that we’re missing a really big story on Nexperia. The Dutch chip maker is now owned by the Chinese, and has become a resource allocation geopolitical football of late. 

Volkswagen has warned of temporary production outages citing China’s export restrictions on semiconductors made by Nexperia.

In response, the Dutch government has intervened to take control of Nexperia’s governance under national security laws.  

He warns that Europe could be sawing off the branch it sits on.  If they steal Russian sovereign reserves – and at the same time go around stealing Chinese businesses is Europe even investible anymore, is using the Euro and sterling even possible anymore for third countries?

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