US Treasury Secretary Yellen receives an honorary doctorate today, which gives ECB President Lagarde an opportunity to speak in public. It would be poor taste to talk of policy on such an occasion. Of more interest is Yellen’s motive for visiting Europe—the G7 finance ministers’ meeting on Thursday. This may discuss using the income from frozen Russian assets (including central bank assets) to aid Ukraine. Markets may pay attention not just to the implications for Ukraine, but the implications around the security of asset ownership in a politically polarized world.
