Press

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said leaving Europe without a deal would leave British business and the City in a state of regulatory and legal limbo, with the immediate introduction of tariffs and customs controls.“I think it’s more likely than not there will be a deal,” he said. “I think the chaos in the financial markets would be extreme if it looked like there was not going to be a deal. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Sophia Besch, a research fellow with the Centre for European Reform, has been tracking the Twitter chatter and tells DW it's been very interesting to see "who is alarmed and who isn't". Besch believes that despite the transatlantic nature of her remarks, Merkel was aiming squarely at German voters.

“Both sides will have to make some compromises -- but we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that it won’t mainly have to be the UK,” said Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska, research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London. “Brussels seems to be aware that we can interpret some of the tougher remarks in the UK as being directed to a domestic audience.”

The implications for individual countries could be momentous, particularly for those outside the eurozone. Mishandled, as Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska and Christian Odendahl note in a new report for the Centre for European Reform, this process could increase divisions between member states and even lead to further disintegration.

“After the general election, Theresa May is going to have to sell a softer message on ECJ oversight to the British people,” says Camino Mortera-Martinez of the Centre for European Reform. “This is essential if a bespoke deal on justice and home affairs is to be agreed.”

 But carefully worded platitudes will only serve to mask the reality that Trump's America is largely abdicating its NATO leadership role, weakening the once-durable military alliance. "Even if he commits to the alliance," says Sophia Besch, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, "given the erratic comments of the past, US leadership is still not there."

Camino Mortera-Martinez, a research fellow from the Centre for European Reform, says the attacks will renew the focus on security issues in the Brexit talks. “Every time there is a scare like this, it highlights that no country is alone,” she says. That the bombing was in Manchester also punctures the argument, prevalent during last year’s Brexit referendum campaign, linking mass migration with terrorism, she adds. “Just because you are outside the Schengen area, doesn’t mean you escape terrorism. Closing borders won’t shield you from the evils of the world,” Ms Mortera-Martinez says.