Bloomberg Businessweek-Europe Edition February 14, 2022

● Global coronavirus cases have topped 400m Almost 5.8 million people have died, and 10.3 billion vaccine doses have been given. In Hong Kong, residents face a shortage of fresh food; strict antivirus controls in mainland China, which supplies more than 90% of the city’s food, have slowed deliveries. ● President Joe Biden said the controversial Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline would be scrapped if President Vladimir Putin orders an invasion of Ukraine, potentially exacerbating Europe’s energy crisis. Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops along the border, though Putin has repeatedly said he has no plans to invade. ● Meta Platforms threatened to pull Facebook and Instagram out of Europe if it’s unable to keep transferring user data to the U.S. Lawmakers in the EU were unperturbed. French Finance Minister Bruno…

As talks continue on what might be salvaged from President Joe Biden’s stalled tax-and-spending plan, one of its smaller pieces is worth singling out: a proposal to cut the prices Americans pay for prescription drugs. As it stands, it’s a good first stab, but Biden should press further. Doing so would serve the public and strengthen the president’s popular support. The existing system must strike any outside observer as absurd. U.S. pharmaceutical companies charge their domestic customers vastly more than they demand of buyers in the rest of the world. Medicare is expressly barred from doing what foreign equivalents take for granted: using its bargaining power to get better prices. In short, producers are granted government-enforced monopolies for new drugs and are generously assisted by research carried out at taxpayers’ expense—yet the…

▶ The Federal Reserve releases minutes from its last meeting on Feb. 16. It was a closely watched gathering: Chair Jay Powell laid the groundwork for a series of rate increases. ▶ NATO members’ defense ministers meet Feb. 16-17 in Brussels. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently announced he’d be departing to head Norway’s central bank. ▶ The Symposium on Energy Outlooks, in Riyadh on Feb. 16, will chart a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make access to fuel sources more affordable. ▶ Leaders of the EU and the African Union will meet for a summit in Brussels Feb. 17-18. The agenda will include vaccine production, education, governance, and climate change. ▶ It’s a big week for European bank earnings. Standard Chartered and Commerzbank report numbers on Feb. 17, followed by NatWest Group…

Over the past two years, China’s zero-tolerance policy of lockdowns, mass testing, and strict border quarantines for Covid-19 has prevented a huge number of deaths at home and ensured that everything from iPhones and Teslas to fertilizer and car parts continued to flow to the rest of the world. If consumers and businesses want to continue to buy goods made in China without having to endure shortages and further price hikes, they should want China to stick with its “Covid-zero” policy, as Chinese President Xi Jinping does. Yet that’s not the message you hear outside of China. Criticism of Beijing’s determination to squash every outbreak is increasing—criticism that emphasizes the damage to China’s economy, the risks posed to global supply chains, and even the threat to Olympic athletes’ human rights. Gita Gopinath, a…

Isaac Larian, founder of MGA Entertainment Inc., thought he’d withstood the worst of last year’s tsunami of costs from supply chain snags and labor shortages. But now the maker of Bratz and L.O.L. Surprise! dolls and Little Tikes toys is bracing for a second wave of profit destruction: $100-a-barrel oil. “It’s just a disaster,” says Larian, who like many toymakers has some material costs closely tied to the price of oil and natural gas. “There’s not much you can do.” Analysts see crude soon topping the century mark, and prices could even spike to $150 if Russia-Ukraine tensions escalate to create a supply shock, JPMorgan Chase & Co. economists Joseph Lupton and Bruce Kasman said in a report. The name of the inflation game for companies is to pass along such…

For more than two decades, Airbus SE and Qatar Airways have been locked in a tumultuous relationship. The Gulf airline’s chief executive officer, Akbar Al Baker, has always relished a good fight, ridiculing the plane maker’s managers in public or refusing to take aircraft because of a perceived defect. Each time, Airbus endured the torment because the carrier is among its best customers, with billions of dollars’ worth of planes on order. Now the two are airing their grievances in public once again—only this time Airbus is fighting back. The companies are facing off in court in a highstakes showdown that’s being closely watched in the industry, because it stands to redefine the relationship between manufacturers and airlines. It all started with flaking paint on an Airbus A350 aircraft. The airline, the…