Press

“Franco-German relations are in a troubled period,” said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform. He cited differences on euro zone reform, relations with the United States, EU defence policy and tax rules for the digital economy.
“More broadly, France wants Europe to be a power and therefore believes it needs radical reform,” Grant said. Germany is quite happy with the way the EU works at the moment.”
 

Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, argues the concerns over the UK “are overblown” given UK interests in maintaining goodwill with the EU, whatever government holds office in London,“The Jacob Rees-Mogg strategy of guerrilla warfare from within would preclude that,” said Mr Grant. “And if a hardline Eurosceptic government sought to provoke the EU into forcing the British out via a no-deal situation, parliament would not stand for it. Jacob Rees-Mogg can huff and puff and feel good about what he says but it’s not a strategy that will win support among MPs.”

One of the leading Remain think-tanks is the Centre for European Reform (CER), whose very name denotes an acceptance that all is not right with the EU. But its work shows that leaving is not the answer.Even before the calamity that almost certainly awaits us if King, Jacob Rees-Mogg et al have their way, the CER finds that in the period from the referendum on 23 June 2016 to December 2018, the UK economy became 2.5% smaller than it would have been if we had voted to Remain. The CER states: “The knock-on hit to the public finances is £19bn per annum – or £360m a week.” Does £360m a week remind you of another figure? That’s right: one of the many lies of the Leave campaign was that the NHS would benefit by £350m a week.

“I find it very difficult to imagine these two parties sitting down at the same table as part of the same grouping in Brussels,” said Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska of the Centre for European Reform.