Press

If Sunak wants to put Britain back on track, he must break with the Brexiteers

01 April 2023
The New European
But whereas other economies have largely recovered from the pandemic, the UK continues to languish because Brexit keeps on inflicting its damage. The Centre for European Reform calculates that by June, it will have cost Britain a lost £40 billion in taxes.

Windsor Framework: Plan to scrap EU laws could undermine NI deal, says report

Anton Spisak
01 April 2023
BBC News
Plans to scrap thousands of EU-era laws copied over to UK law after Brexit could undermine the Windsor Framework, a think tank has warned. The Centre for European Reform (CER) said that would lead to "unmanaged divergence" between Britain and the EU.It says this in turn would "deepen the regulatory gulf between Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

Sunak rejects report that plan to scrap thousands of EU laws will undermine Brexit deal

Anton Spisak
31 March 2023
The Daily Express
Rishi Sunak has rubbished the claim that the Government's plan to scrap thousands of EU laws would undermine the Windsor Framework. The Retained EU Law Bill will see thousands of laws inherited from the Europen Union expire automatically at the end of 2023. But the Centre for European Reform (CER) said the plans would lead to "unmanaged divergence" between Britain and the EU.

It's Groundhog Day for EU fiscal rule reform

Sander Tordoir, Jasper van Dijk
30 March 2023
Politico
A desperately needed reform of the EU’s fiscal rules is finally underway.The current rules are too complicated — they impose unrealistic demands on some countries, and they lead to overspending in economic booms and austerity in recessions.

Judy Asks: Is Hungary a reliable EU and NATO member?

30 March 2023
Carnegie Europe
Viktor Orbán benefits from EU and NATO membership while undermining these organizations’ core values. Hungary’s allies must find ways to restrain Budapest and not be held hostage.

Navigating Europe’s southern challenges

30 March 2023
European View
The EU’s foreign policy is currently focused on supporting Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression and on dealing with the consequences of the war, particularly in terms of energy security.

Boris Johnson likely to remain a constant in UK political life

29 March 2023
Arab News
Estimates previously published by the Centre for European Reform, which found that Brexit cost the UK £33 billion ($40 billion) in lost trade in the second quarter of last year alone and more than £40 billion in tax losses in the year to the end of June 2022. The same research showed that the UK economy was 5.5 percent smaller in June last year than it would have been without Brexit.

EU: Estonia spat underlies challenges for Ukraine arms fund

29 March 2023
Deutsche Welle
The implication is that Tallinn is taking the opportunity to modernize its stocks with the help of EU funds rather than domestic assets, which other member states are not doing, Luigi Scazzieri, an analyst from the Centre for European Reform, told DW."Clearly there's annoyance in some countries at the way Estonia has used the fund," he said. "Mainly because if everyone used the fund to be reimbursed for new equipment, then the money in the fund would actually run out very, very quickly."

Brexit damage as big as Covid, says OBR – predicting five years before incomes recover

26 March 2023
The Independent
In December, the Centre for European Reform (CER) found that Brexit cost the UK a staggering £33bn in lost trade, investment and growth. The CER also estimated the tax loss from Brexit at around £40bn.The research – first shared with The Independent – showed that by June of this year Britain’s economy was 5.5 per cent smaller than it would have been if the country had remained in the EU.

CER podcast: Russian hybrid threats

Ian Bond, Helmi Pillai
24 March 2023
In this week's episode of the CER podcast Ian Bond discusses hybrid threats with Helmi Pillai.

Like it or not, the EU needs American cloud services

23 March 2023
Encompass
As industrial competition with the US and China heats up, European businesses need to be more innovative to keep pace.

Euractiv: How safe are European banks?

23 March 2023
This week Sander Tordoir joinged the Beyond the Byline podcast to discuss the trouble in the financial markets, following the collapse of the US-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

Why is UK inflation higher than other countries?

22 March 2023
BBC News
A study by the think-tanks Centre for European Reform and UK in a Changing Europe suggests there are 330,000 fewer workers in the UK as a result of Brexit, with sectors such as transport, hospitality and retail have been particularly hard hit.

Why does the UK have highest inflation in G7 and is Brexit a factor?

22 March 2023
The Guardian
Research from the Centre for European Reform and UK in a Changing Europe suggests Brexit could still have led to a shortfall of 330,000 people in the UK labour force, after taking into account how the workforce might have looked if Britain had remained in the EU.

Integrated Review Refresh 2023 – towards a more pragmatic chapter in UK foreign policy?

21 March 2023
The UK in a Changing Europe
Luigi Scazzieri analyses the recent ‘refresh’ of the 2021 Integrated Review, arguing that it marks a new more pragmatic chapter in UK foreign policy and underscores a renewed willingness to engage with the EU.

Winter is gone. But can we really say Europe's energy crisis is over?

21 March 2023
Euronews
Elisabetta Cornago, a senior energy researcher at the Centre for European Reform (CER), described the savings as an "impressive response" but said some of the changes, particularly the industrial cutbacks, were temporary rather than "structural.""The behavioural response was driven by price level and the fear of how prices will impact your life. These fears and concerns led consumers to stay on the conservative side and try to limit the hours they had the heating on," Cornago told Euronews.

German bid to tweak EU gas car phase-out peeves partners

21 March 2023
Deutsche Welle
Wissing's demands are controversial because few see e-fuels as a viable solution to reducing passenger car emissions, Elisabetta Cornago, an EU climate policy expert from the Centre for European Reform, told DW on Tuesday. "Studies indicate that e-fuels in 2035 would be able to power less than 5% of the EU fleet, proving to be a distraction from the electrification of transport," she said.

If it’s growth the chancellor wants, here’s one suggestion: Rejoin the EU

19 March 2023
The Observer
John Springford of the Centre for European Reform estimates that the negative impact of gratuitously imposing trade barriers on our nearest trading partners – via higher import prices, loss of vital immigrant workers, and general uncertainty affecting business confidence – had cost our economy 5.5% of GDP by the summer of 2022.

Made in the UK advertising campaign 'trying to hide Brexit mayhem'

19 March 2023
The National
Research by the Centre for European Reform think-tank in 2019 suggested that Brexit had shrunk Britain’s economy by 2.9% and said exports had fallen by 3.4%.

EU kontert Subventionspläne Chinas und der USA

17 March 2023
Süddeutsche Zeitung
Experten der Berliner Denkfabrik Centre for European Reform können den Plänen deshalb einiges abgewinnen. Ihnen zufolge sendet Europa mit den Plänen "ein wichtiges politisches Signal, dass die EU sich nicht kampflos deindustrialisieren wird und dass die Dekarbonisierung eine Chance für eine grüne Industrialisierung ist."