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Una de las aportaciones de este colectivo procede del think tank Centre for European Reform, que este viernes publicaba un artículo apoyando la idea de que el fondo de recuperación se convierta en una herramienta permanente: “A pesar de su tamaño, no es lo suficientemente grande como para mover permanentemente la inversión climática.

The Centre for European Reform is making the case for extending the lifetime of the EU recovery fund beyond the current cut-off date, 2026. The RRF should instead become permanent, and focus on climate investment to ensure the EU meets its carbon neutrality goal by 2050.

"It's extremely serious. It's difficult to see how France and the UK can work together on issues of major importance when the relationship is so bad," said John Springford, an expert at the London-based Centre for European Reform think-tank.

One way of trying to screen out the effects of Covid-19 and other factors is to measure UK trade against a ‘doppelgänger’ UK that had not exited the EU, built around modelling the trade performance of other advanced economies such as the US, Germany, Greece, New Zealand and Sweden. This is what has generated the below chart from John Springford at the Centre for European Reform (CER) whose work was referenced by the OBR in its October update.

Christian Odendahl, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform says the “political calculus changes quite a bit” for state leaders facing election. He argues politicians dodged the Covid issue in German elections in September, making a backlash more likely at the ballot box in state votes next year.
But, adds Odendahl, Austria’s mandatory move “will set a precedent for Germany, because Germany and Austria follow each other's politics and country relatively closely”.

Charles Grant, of the Centre for European Reform, suggests it is worse than that. “There is another reason why they are they refusing to allow NGOs and journalists to visit, why they don’t want Frontex. They don’t want people monitoring their behaviour on the frontline.” 
The government is using the border crisis for political advantage, Grant adds. Poland has refused to take in migrants under EU quota schemes devised after the great wave that arrived in Germany in 2015. It is the classic political wedge, to play up against a “soft” opposition. “Liberals are in a mess about it.”