Pierre Wunsch, Governor of the National Bank of Belgium, has a 25-year-old son who recently asked him if World War III was on the horizon. "I thought it was excellent news that he asked me," he said to Le Monde. Not that the central banker welcomes the possibility of war returning, obviously, but because he sees it as a sign that public opinion is really worried. "[Russian president Vladimir] Putin, represents a real threat and we absolutely must invest in our defense. But my big fear is that people won't accept that, that they'll say we should spend on something else," he said. For him, procrastinating on European rearmament would represent a far greater risk: "If we're not strong enough against Putin, that's when there could be a risk of global escalation. Europeans are going to have to relearn to be afraid, relearn pride and, from time to time, relearn to be angry."

Wunsch is not a military expert but a central banker (at the National Bank of Belgium since 2011, governor since 2019). Previously, he worked for nearly a decade at the Suez Group and served in right-wing ministerial cabinets. When he speaks out on tensions with Russia, it is through the prism of economics. The Russian threat and the potential abandonment of American protection will require heavy budget spending in Europe. "But there's no such thing as free money falling from the sky," he said. He therefore believes that very difficult budgetary choices are looming just about everywhere in Europe and that people need to be prepared for them: "We'll either have to cut spending, or raise taxes."

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