Press

“Even now, she still has the moral authority on the EU stage to knock heads together,” says Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform. “Just look around the table of EU leaders, they are political pygmies, apart from Emmanuel Macron, who is weak at home and [the Dutch prime minister] Mark Rutte, who only represents a middle-sized country. She’s still head and shoulders above all other leaders.”

“The euro crisis started getting better the moment Europe decided to go against what Merkel said the policies should be,” said Christian Odendahl, Berlin-based chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, a research institution. “The euro crisis got better not because of, but despite Merkel.”

 Don't bank on a weak German chancellor to deliver a better Brexit, writes Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in (The Guardian): "Unwilling to rescue the Chequers plan, Germany – with or without Merkel – will push Britain towards the relatively hard Brexit of a Canada-style free trade agreement."

An analysis by the Centre for European Reform has found that the UK economy is 2.5% smaller now than if the British public voted to remain within the EU.

Emmanuel Macron’s blockbuster EU vision speech is one year old and almost none of his big ideas have come into fruition. Leonard Schuette at the Centre for European Reform reviews the French president’s “mediocre record” thus far. “For some of the slow progress, Macron is to blame. But by and large, Macron’s plans were stymied by developments outside his control. Due to his reliance on support from other member-states — particularly Germany and Italy — he has been held hostage by parochial domestic politics elsewhere. At home, his popularity is waning.”