Press

The United Kingdom has always had an uneasy relationship with the European Union. The current UK government has promised the British people that they will get a chance in 2017 to decide whether they should finally break away from the EU entirely. British critics see the European Union as an undemocratic imposition of foreign rules on an unwilling British public, while British proponents see the EU as an important source of British prosperity and a magnifier of British influence in the world.

"The concept of the unitary state is going to become much more difficult except for a very small country," said Stephen Tindale, associate fellow at the CER. "It does augur increased pressure on central governments to change the (political) relationship" with regions.

Simon Tilford, du CER, a écrit une longue note relativisant les problèmes économiques de la France."Ce n'est pas un pays sclérosé, sinon comment expliquer que les investissements étrangers continuent à affluer? Mais si le pays déçoit tant, c'est que les attentes envers ce pays sont très fortes."

"I have never known Berlin more annoyed with France," says Charles Grant, director of the CER."Seen from Berlin, Hollande has wasted two years achieving virtually no structural reform and failing to rein in spending."

"We will be wanting to make certain at a European as well as a national level that the right of people to work or retire around Europe does not become a right to travel around in order to collect social security benefits or commit crime." He was speaking at a fringe event hosted by the CER/BfB/BNE.

The focus for climate diplomacy should be climate finance, argues Stephen Tindale, former director of Greenpeace UK, and author of a report for the CER, a London-based think tank.

Take a look at the chart below from Christian Odendahl, the chief economist at the CER. Once you account for depreciation, Germany's public investment on construction and equipment has actually been negative the past decade.