Charles Grant
Charles Grant
Director
Areas of expertise
Britain’s relationship with the EU, the ‘future of Europe’ debate, European foreign and defence policy, and China's relations with the West.
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Transatlantic rift: How to bring the two sides together
05 September 2003
The Iraq conflict divided the West into two hostile camps. The rifts that run across the Atlantic and among the Europeans show few signs of disappearing.
Defrosting the entente glaciale
02 June 2003
When Britain and France fall out, they damage not only each other but also the United Nations, NATO and the EU's embryonic foreign and defence policy. So long as Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair remain leaders of rival European gangs, a harmonious transatlantic relationship is impossible.
The CER guide to Giscard's draft EU constitution
30 May 2003
The draft constitution for the EU published on 26 and 27 May 2003 has provoked a ferocious debate in the British press. However, on closer inspection, the text would not fundamentally change the UK’s position in the EU, and it secures nearly all of the British government’s key objectives.
The EU-Russia energy dialogue
09 May 2003
Russia is the EU's biggest neighbour. The EU is Russia's most important trading partner and source of foreign investment. Yet EU-Russia relations have often suffered from discord over contentious issues such as trade quotas, rules on visas, the Kaliningrad enclave or human rights in Chechnya. So it is all the...
The decline of American power
01 April 2003
Saddam Hussein notwithstanding, most of the world's problems cannot be solved by military force. Their solution requires 'soft power', which can be defined as a country's ability to influence events through persuasion and attraction, rather than military or financial coercion. A country has more soft power if its culture, values...
The Europeans can stick together on Iraq
07 February 2003
The emergency EU summit on Iraq has produced a useful statement on what unites Europeans in their dealing with the Iraq crisis. After the very public squabbling of recent days and weeks, EU leaders pulled back from the brink and decided to underline the common ground between them. But deep...
The return of Franco-German dominance?
03 February 2003
The Franco-German alliance has provided both stability and momentum to the European Union, for most of its history. But by the time that François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl left the scene, the EU's 'motor' had more or less broken down.
What role for NATO?
01 November 2002
NATO adapted well after the end of the Cold War. An organisation which had been focused on collective defence against the Soviet threat found new things to do: spreading security and stability through NATO enlargement to new members and partners in Central Europe, and applying force to impose – and...
New designs for Europe
04 October 2002
Everybody agrees that the EU's institutions are in bad need of reform. In the Convention on the Future of Europe, and elsewhere, a real debate has begun on how Europe should be governed.
Restoring leadership to the European council
01 April 2002
Everybody knows the European Commission is in bad need of reform. The problems in the European Council - the regular summits of heads of government - and the Council of Ministers are less widely known but just as serious, and they contribute to Europe's lack of leadership.