Press
Solving inflation divide crucial step for euro
14 August 2012
Market Watch
"Assuming inflation falls to zero in Spain, Italy and the peripheral trio, and averages around 2% in France and the Benelux trio, it follows that inflation in Germany (plus Austria and Finland) will need to rise to around 4%," Simon Tilford, chief economist at the CER wrote in a recent blog post.
Europe contracts, concerns widen
14 August 2012
The Wall Street Journal
"There's no doubt that some countries have no option but to pursue tight fiscal policies at the moment, but the extent of fiscal austerity across the euro zone as a whole is counter-productive," said Simon Tilford of the CER.
The Great British Brexit
10 August 2012
BBC News
It's summed up in a quote from Philip Whyte of the CER: "Three views of the UK are now common across Europe: that it is unreliable and unconstructive; that it is an active distraction from solving the region's worst crisis since World War Two; and that it appears to be heading for the EU's exit door".
Une troisième option pour l'Europe: une union politique qui ne durerait que 15 ans
03 August 2012
Express.be
L'euro est un Frankenstein qui pourrait détruire son créateur", affirme Hugo Brady, chercheur au Centre for European Reform, qui a également collaboré comme consultant pour la Commission Européenne et la Chambre des Lords britanniques.
Prospects for deeper Visegrád defence collaboration
01 August 2012
CEPA
The May NATO Summit in Chicago ended with a call on member states to spend their money on the right priorities, to seek economies of scale in collaboration and to start specializing instead of duplicating each other's efforts.
Skies growing cloudy for Anglo-French UAV project
28 July 2012
Defence News
Tomas Valasek of the Centre for European Reform, wrote in a recent article that while the British government and the previous French administration saw it as an exclusively bilateral affair, the new administration views UAV co-operation as the core of a wider European effort.
Balkan democracies fray as anti-austerity boosts Orban followers
26 July 2012
Bloomberg Business Week
Government moves in Hungary and Romania "suggest to me that this is still a generation that doesn’t have democratic instincts in their blood," Tomas Valasek of the CER, said July 18 by phone. "It takes more for the generational change to cycle some of the old politicians out of the system."
Greek dilemma: New terms, or exit
25 July 2012
The Wall Street Journal
"We're talking about the troika as if it's a monolith, but I'm beginning to wonder if there aren't disagreements cropping up," said Philip Whyte, senior research fellow at the CER, a think-tank in London.
Miliband and Hollande 'turning tide against austerity'
24 July 2012
Politics.co.uk
The British government's focus on consolidating the public finances and push through supply-side reforms is at odds with the new French president's instincts, according to Philip Whyte, a senior research fellow at the CER. "France is almost at the opposite end of that debate," he told politics.co.uk.
Cameron's EU stance is unsustainable and the sceptics know it
19 July 2012
New Statesman
For further reading on UK relations with the EU, by far the best thing published recently is this excellent CER pamphlet 'The continent or the open sea: Does Britain have a European future?' by David Rennie of the Economist.
Europe: Dangerous eurozone limbo
16 July 2012
BBC News
Simon Tilford from the CER summed it up in a paper like this: "Unfortunately, the agreed measures (at the summit) were modest and have already prompted a backlash in various countries, not least in Germany and the Netherlands. Indeed, much of what was agreed at the summit is unlikely to come into effect. All this suggests that the limits of the politically possible may already have been reached."
Integrating the EU defence market: An easy way to soften the impact of military spending cuts?
12 July 2012
Institute for Security Studies
As many European countries introduce their biggest defence budget cuts in years, they have been exploring ways to limit the impact on their armed forces.
Un 49% de los británicos votaría por salirse de la UE en un referendum
12 July 2012
ABC.es
En opinión de Charles Grant, director del Centre for European Reform, «la probabilidad de que el Reino Unido abandone de forma efectiva la UE antes de 2020 es del 50-50, la situación es muy seria», nos confesaba recientemente.
Big banks and think-tanks
12 July 2012
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
EU-focused Centre for European Reform is more open than most about its sponsors. It told the Bureau that 11 per cent of its £1.2m annual turnover came from the financial services industry. These funders include Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank AG, JP Morgan and UBS, to name a few.
Bientôt l'Europe sans la Grande-Bretagne?
12 July 2012
Le Monde
"Il y a 50 chances sur 100 que Cameron ne puisse échapper à un référendum sur l'Europe au cours de la prochaine législature", dit le très europhile et très compétent Charles Grant, qui dirige à Londres le CER.
Think tank of the year awards 2012
11 July 2012
Prospect
The Centre for European Reform has gained a strong reputation for its coverage of European economic affairs, especially because of the work of Simon Tilford, who has offered consistent clarity on Germany's role in the eurozone crisis.
The Socialist, the Tory, and the queen: Hollande visits UK
10 July 2012
The Christian Science Monitor
"Despite the comments at the G-20, Cameron wants relations with France to work," says Philip Whyte of the CER in London. ... "Britain's continued membership in the EU is unclear … momentum for a referendum in three to four year is becoming nearly unstoppable ...
German finance minister asks court not to block euro assistance
10 July 2012
The New York Times
"The fundamental problem with the eurozone is that what happens at the federal level in the United States still happens at the national level in the eurozone," said Philip Whyte, a senior research fellow at the CER. "Unless they correct that flaw, individual states are going to run into trouble, and when they run into trouble, the markets are going to question how much political appetite there is to keep that country within the eurozone."
Merkollande's blossoming friendship and what it means for Europe
10 July 2012
CNBC
"In the long run, the euro is not sustainable without a grand bargain between France and Germany," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank.
Minister seeks to ease Olympics fears
10 July 2012
Financial Times
Charles Grant, a regular Eurostar traveller and director of the Centre of European Reform, said he had faced delays of more than an hour disembarking, complaining that UK officials were worse than those in any authoritarian regime he had dealt with. "The UK has a problem with its reputation and image at the moment. I do believe this borders problem – at airports and at St Pancras – is reinforcing the overall impression that we don’t like foreigners ...and that we are shutting ourselves off from the world," he told the Financial Times.