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Welcome to the Brussels Edition. I’m Suzanne Lynch, Bloomberg’s Brussels bureau chief, bringing you the latest from the EU each weekday. Make sure you’re signed up. Countries to the east are lining up to join, with Brussels opening accession talks this month with Ukraine and Moldova. Even eurosceptic figures like Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orban have advocated changing the EU from within, rather than exiting the EU, reflecting the views of their supporters in France and Hungary respectively. According to a recent analysis by Bloomberg Economics, Brexit has cost the UK as much as 4% in lost economic output, unleashing consequences that are “significant and negative.” 
The EU too has suffered, not least ideologically, losing one of its strongest free-market voices. The bloc’s dismal failure to complete its capital-markets union means it has failed to use the UK’s departure as a springboard to strengthening its own financial services industry. Instead, the City of London remains dominant and an exodus of finance professionals never materialized, helped by domestic policy moves such as relaxing rules around bonuses. The imminent appointment of a seventh British prime minister in 10 years injects more uncertainty into the relationship. Officials in Brussels are unclear about the views of Andy Burnham, Starmer’s likely successor, on EU-UK relations — one of the reasons the European Council is postponing next month’s summit. The two sides had been expecting to make progress on rules governing trade in plant and animal goods, a linking-up of emissions trading systems, and a youth mobility scheme. Negotiating with a lame duck prime minister like Starmer was always going to be a gamble for Brussels, given that it was burned by flip-flopping British prime ministers from Boris Johnson to Theresa May who changed the goalposts many times during the tortuous Brexit negotiations. Nonetheless, European Council President Antonio Costa is still committed to a summit with the next prime minister. In the weeks leading up to Starmer’s resignation, Burnham u-turned on a number of his earlier positions, including ruling out seeking to take Britain back into the EU just eight months after saying he wanted to rejoin. The key question is whether he decides to continue with Starmer’s effort to reset ties or pursue a different path. The Latest
Seen and Heard on BloombergUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy needs to do whatever it takes to defuse his escalating dispute with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, writes Marc Champion for Bloomberg Opinion. Zelenskyy’s decision to rename a special forces unit after the controversial World War II Ukrainian Insurgent Army, known as UPA, risks alienating a key ally. And though Nawrocki is cynically weaponizing the UPA issue, Zelenskyy leads a country that relies almost entirely on Poland for its survival in today’s war. 
Nawrocki and Zelenskyy arrive at a news conference in Warsaw, Poland, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025.
Photographer: Damian Lemanski/Bloomberg
Chart of the Day
Bargain-hunting consumers across the EU will start feeling the pinch of higher online shopping costs next month when a new levy primarily targeting China comes into force. A €3 duty will apply on items less than €150, a move aimed at slowing the flood of low-priced merchandise from outside the EU sold by sites like Shein and Temu. E-commerce imports into the bloc reached nearly 6 billion items last year, and China accounted for about 90% of merchandise under €150, including fast fashion, beauty products and electronics. Coming up
Final ThoughtGreece’s rehabilitation from its economic crisis over the past decade has been lauded by euro-region peers and investors alike. But behind the new era of healthy metrics lies a decline in living standards that’s pricing even relatively affluent Greeks out of benefiting from that recovery. Inflation is among the highest in the euro area, while the average annual salary of about €18,000 is less than half that of the wider EU. 
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Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Brussels Edition: Brexit’s long shadow
Is Elon about to trigger another 315X opportunity?
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Ripple's EU license clears stablecoin path — and Joe Lubin backs Ethereum's next chapter
Ripple's EU license clears stablecoin path — and Joe Lubin backs Ethereum's next chapterRipple wins CASP license in Luxembourg. Digital euro legal framework approved by EU Parliament. Ethlabs R&D nonprofit launches with Lubin, Bitmine backing. Synthetix retires sUSD, compensates holders
Good Morning Lions, Regulation is finally starting to look like an actual path instead of a wall. Ripple just locked preliminary approval for a Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) license in Luxembourg — which means they can now offer stablecoins and regulated crypto services across the entire European Economic Area under MiCA. To me that’s huge. Especially for the EU which notoriously is the hardest regulatory environment. The thing that gets me is the timing. Right when the digital euro framework clears the EU Parliament’s ECON Committee and heads toward final negotiations, you’ve got private stablecoin operators like Ripple getting licensed to compete in the same sandbox. A market is forming. And on the Ethereum side, Joe Lubin just funded Ethlabs, a new nonprofit R&D org staffed by five former Ethereum Foundation researchers, tasked with readying the chain for institutional adoption through stablecoins and tokenization. Same theme, three different angles. Are we finally seeing the end of the out of shape ETH Foundation? In my opinion, this is bullish for ETH. The incumbent “DAO” has been ineffective for years. Get them out and put a new structure in place. Bitcoin is trading at $62,323 after tech and crypto sold off in overnight trading. It’s hard to say where we’ll go from here. Right now, it feels like the whole market is just holding its breath and waiting to see what happens. I’m not saying we’re at the inflection point yet. But I’m watching the infrastructure get built out in real time, and to me that’s worth more than any price action right now.
Ripple’s EU license unlocks the stablecoin corridorTL;DR: Ripple cleared preliminary approval for a CASP license from Luxembourg’s regulator, paving the way to offer regulated crypto and stablecoin services across the entire European Economic Area. This is the first real regulatory pathway for private stablecoins in the EU — and it matters because it means Ripple can actually compete with the digital euro once it launches.
EU Parliament greenlights digital euro — pre-2030 launch now in motionTL;DR: The European Parliament’s ECON Committee approved the legal framework for the digital euro, clearing the way for final legislative negotiations and alignment with the ECB’s pre-2030 launch target. The real story isn’t just that a CBDC is coming — it’s that private stablecoins like Ripple’s will now have to compete in the same regulatory space.
Joe Lubin funds Ethlabs — Ethereum’s institutional betTL;DR: Joe Lubin and ether treasury firms Bitmine and Sharplink backed Ethlabs, a new nonprofit research organization led by five former Ethereum Foundation researchers. Their mission: ready Ethereum for institutional adoption through stablecoins and tokenization. This is the infrastructure play — the unsexy work that actually enables adoption.
Synthetix kills sUSD — pivots hard to perpetualsTL;DR: Synthetix governance voted to retire the sUSD stablecoin and compensate holders with newly minted SNX at a 4:1 conversion rate. This marks a hard strategic shift: away from stablecoin infrastructure and toward perpetual futures trading as the protocol’s core. Holders get paid to exit; the protocol gets to focus.
Taiwan’s margin debt screams — 24-year high on TSMC AI feverTL;DR: Margin borrowing in Taiwan has surpassed $13 billion and hit levels unseen since the dot-com era, driven by retail investors piling into TSMC and AI stocks. Brokerages are tightening lending standards as the risk profile climbs. When retail leverage hits a 24-year high, it’s worth paying attention to the macro backdrop — because what goes up on leverage tends to come down the same way. The regulatory infrastructure’s getting real. Whether that’s good or bad for crypto depends on who you ask — but to me, clarity beats uncertainty every time. I’m watching the next 90 days. — Khal
More crypto news, daily, at news.leodex.io. The Daily LEO · Written by the LEO Team, Edited by Khal. The Daily LEO is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell The Daily LEO that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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