A blockbuster plot worth following

As a self-declared movie buff, I love nothing more than settling into any new movie. Recently, I watched the latest instalment in the seemingly endless Mission: Impossible series: The Final Reckoning. Tom Cruise, still sprinting like it’s 1996, takes on a new villain: AI. The film delivers what you’d expect: high-octane stunts, explosions, and a plot so elusive it might as well have been classified. I left the theatre wondering what exactly I had just watched. Lots of action, very little story.

And that’s when it hit me: this felt oddly familiar. Welcome to the global economy in 2025

We’re nearly halfway through an action-packed year. There’s been no shortage of drama, some meaningful, much of it not. However, unlike Mission: Impossible, the global economy does have a storyline, it’s just not always easy to follow.

Let’s rewind: tariffs - some more charming than others - market volatility, questions about Fed independence, a U.S. credit downgrade, fiscal stimulus on steroids, rising debt, deportations, visa restrictions for foreign students, the war in Ukraine entering its fourth year, and Germany doing a fiscal U-turn with a likely doubling of defence spending. And that’s just the highlights reel.

This isn’t another Hollywood sequel. Even if not every policy twist is meaningful, we’re clearly in the middle of a structural shift. And it’s still too early to separate noise from narrative, but some themes are emerging:

• the highest global tariff levels since the 1930s,
• growing investor concerns about America's debt sustainability, and
• rule of law, and a geopolitical landscape that’s anything but stable.

Germany’s fiscal mindset has changed—at least for now (they prefer calling it “fiscal investing”). Europe is waking up to the reality that it can no longer rely on the U.S. for its security. ECB President Christine Lagarde has dubbed this a “global euro moment.” That might be a touch too Ethan Hunt for some, but the message is clear: Europe needs to step up.

But let’s be honest; this 'moment' won’t materialise through speeches alone. Europe must build a fully integrated financial and capital market, foster a competitive and innovative economy, and be ready to act as a global backstop in times of crisis, be that financial, geopolitical, or even military. Let’s hope this time there’s more follow-through than there was with the Lisbon Strategy, which once promised to make Europe “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.” We all know how that movie ended.

So, while the global economy may not have Tom Cruise dangling from helicopters, it does offer a plot worth following, one with real consequences. And for the record, my favourite Cruise moment isn’t from Mission: Impossible at all. It’s from Magnolia. But drawing parallels between that and today’s economy would definitely earn this update an X rating.