Press

PM's Brexit negotiator jets into Brussels to thrash out a temporary Customs Union compromise

15 May 2019
The Sun
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said: “Many people in Brussels expect a further extension of Article 50, well into 2020. They think that the EU will continue to extend Article 50 rather than be seen to promote no deal.”

May tells Corbyn Brexit vote MUST BE DELIVERED ON – new vote date set on deal

15 May 2019
The Express
Charles Grant, of the Centre for European Reform think-tank, reports that Brussels officials are expecting Britain to return with another request to delay Brexit. Mr Grant said: “Some senior figures in Brussels expect the British to receive an extension till June 2020. “That is the latest possible date for the EU to agree on its next seven-year budget plan, the multiannual financial framework that starts in 2021, without serious problems arising.”

Brexit: May to face MPs as rebels warn she risks defeat on deal in June – live news

15 May 2019
The Guardian
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, has just published a very good paper addressing exactly this question. Here is an extract.EU officials don’t trust British MPs to prevent no deal and some of them think it could happen by accident. For example, what if a Boris Johnson-type figure became prime minister in October, and he or she was determined to leave without a deal?

Millennials create own political parties as European Union elections loom

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska
15 May 2019
NBC News
“Those parties which are more radical in their message, including pro-European parties, will probably attract more voters,” said Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank in Brussels. “The result will be that the next European Parliament will be more fragmented. It will be harder to garner a majority to push through legislation.”

Brexit from Brussels

15 May 2019
Financial Times
UK Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins is in Brussels for day two of talks with the EU, this time with his commission counterpart Sabine Weyand. Charles Grant at the CER lays out how some of the EU27’s unity is cracking but exasperation with the Brits is undiminished: “The conduct of the British political class has eroded much of the goodwill that European politicians and officials felt towards the UK. If the British wish to avoid no deal by asking for further extensions they should avoid losing the remaining goodwill that still lingers in certain capitals.”

May to meet Corbyn TONIGHT as cross-party Brexit talks teeter on the brink of collapse

14 May 2019
The Daily Mail
Today it emerged that EU officials are already talking about a further extension of Article 50 to June 2020 because they don't expect any breakthrough in Westminster before the current October 31 deadline, according Charles Grant from the respected Centre for European Reform.

Tok FM: Co czeka polski biznes, jeśli dojdzie do brexitu?

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska
13 May 2019
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform commented on the European Parliament and Brexit.

Why Europe's capital cities are pulling away from their countries – and what we can do about it

Christian Odendahl, John Springford
13 May 2019
CityMetric
Europe’s capital cities are much more productive than smaller cities and towns: the average metropolitan worker produces about 50 per cent more output than workers elsewhere. The divide between capitals and everywhere else is growing, too.

EU economies have converged since last elections

Christian Odendahl
13 May 2019
The Financial Times
Christian Odendahl, economist at the Centre for European Reform, said that restrictive monetary and fiscal policy and fiscal austerity were contributory factors.“It was only in 2012, when Europe threw some dogmas out of the window, that the eurozone stabilised,” Mr Odendahl and colleagues wrote in a recent paper.

Una política migratoria a la espera de medidas a largo plazo

Camino Mortera-Martinez
13 May 2019
El Pais
Con la migración convertida en arma política y en gasolina para partidos populistas y xenófobos en toda la Unión, no es previsible que en la próxima legislatura se hable de potenciar las vías regulares de entrada a Europa, explica Camino Mortera-Martínez, investigadora del Centro para la Reforma Europea (CER, en inglés).

Así será la UE sin Londres

Camino Mortera-Martinez
12 May 2019
La Vanguardia
Con el Brexit, los abanderados del liberalismo pierden fuerza, y Francia y Alemania encontrarán menos resistencias. “Vamos a perder a un defensor muy importante del libre comercio, lo que tendrá sus consecuencias. En este terreno, el Reino Unido siempre estaba contrapuesto a Francia. Y Macron, detrás de su discurso proeuropeo, sigue siendo muy de barrer para casa. Seguimos teniendo países muy nacionalistas para que los liberales se permitan el lujo de perder alguno”, dijo a La Vanguardia Camino Mortera-Martínez, analista del Centre for European Reform.

Berlin's confounding productivity gap

11 May 2019
Bloomberg
The bustling German capital scores poorly on a scale of meeting its economic potential. But do its residents care?

TVN24: Gostyńska, Smolar i Kędzierski o wyborach do europarlamentu

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska
11 May 2019
Gośćmi Macieja Wierzyńskiego byli Agata Gostyńska z Centre for European Reform w Londynie, prezes Fundacji Batorego i współzałożyciel Europejskiej Rady Polityki Międzynarodowej Aleksander Smolar oraz doktor Marcin Kędzierski z Klubu Jagiellońskiego i Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Krakowie. Rozmowa dotyczyła nadchodzących wyborów do Parlamentu Europejskiego.

The EU stuck together on Brexit. Can it remain united on future issues?

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska
10 May 2019
The Christian Science Monitor
“You can’t compare the Brexit negotiations with talks on any other EU policy,” says Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, a researcher at the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank. “They are about something much more fundamental. The dynamic is unique.”

La victoria de Sánchez da alas a España para reclamar más peso en la UE

Camino Mortera-Martinez
10 May 2019
Swiss Info
"El Brexit es una oportunidad de oro para que Espana recupere el papel que le corresponde por peso economico y demogra¡fico en la UE", asegura a la AFP Camino Mortera, del centro de reflexian brita¡nico Centre for European Reform (CER).

The left behind have had a better deal in the old world

Christian Odendahl, John Springford
09 May 2019
The Financial Times
Even when the worst inequality has been avoided, income growth has been sluggish, and worse than that in many places. Above all, acute inequality between regions within European nations is a major problem, as highlighted in a new report from the Centre for European Reform.

QMV + CFSP = A-OK

09 May 2019
Berlin Policy Journal
It is too easy for individual member states to block EU sanctions or diplomatic statements. Extending majority voting to foreign policy would encourage greater unity. 

Letters: Trade-offs

Sam Lowe
09 May 2019
Prospect
Liam Fox says in your trade supplement (“A world beyond Europe,” May) that he wants a “global agreement on services” with Britain at the helm. He makes the point that distance does not constrain trade in services to the same extent it does goods. This is true, but it risks underplaying the impact of geography. Distance does still matter when it comes to trading services cross-border—a 10 per cent increase in distance between countries reduces services trade by 7 per cent. There will be new opportunities for UK services exporters in the future, but the government would be wise to manage expectations. Sam Lowe, Centre for European Reform

Representative Democracy in the EU: Not such a clean break: Westminster's continuous oversight of EU affairs post-Brexit

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska
09 May 2019
CEPS
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska of the CER contributed a chapter titled 'Not such a clean break: Westminster's continuous oversight of EU affairs post-Brexit', see page 333, in Representative Democracy in the EU.

Europe's 'Nationalism' turns out to be local

Christian Odendahl, John Springford
09 May 2019
The Wall Street Journal
A new report this week from the London-based think-tank the Centre for European Reform digs into the economic dimension of these divides, and it illuminates a mess. The EU’s most economically successful member-states, such as Britain, nonetheless contain regions with productivity comparable to Greece’s. Manufacturing’s decline is serious in Western Europe but perhaps somewhat misunderstood. Industrial output in countryside regions more than doubled between 1980 and 2015, although that tended to involve a shift into higher-tech manufacturing.