Research
The UK wants to remain in the EU's trade deals during the transition phase after Brexit
16 January 2018
BuzzFeed News
Trade experts believe this path is more feasible than trying to replicate the agreements over the next 14 months. “This is a sensible approach. The idea that we would have all 40 or so agreements replicated and ready to go in time for March 30 was always little more than a Ministerial pipe-dream,” Sam Lowe, Research Fellow at the Centre for European Reform, told BuzzFeed News.
Margrethe Vestager: The EU commissioner who's taming the tech giants
15 January 2018
The New Statesman
Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform in London, said that he supported the EU’s tax crackdown and the way that Vestager is standing up to the technology companies. “On the other hand, it’s also true that Germany sees the commission as a vehicle to protect its own digital industries. So how much of this is principle, and how much is to protect local industries?”
Sturgeon publishes Brexit impact report saying staying in single market best option - Politics live
15 January 2018
The Guardian
Samuel Lowe from the Centre for European Reform think-tank has posted an interesting thread on the single market on Twitter. It starts here.
Samuel Lowe: A truck crosses a border carrying meat without need for customs or safety checks. The driver doesn't need a visa. The truck company is allowed to operate in both countries. There's a reason the single market and customs union exist and look the way they do.
Samuel Lowe: A truck crosses a border carrying meat without need for customs or safety checks. The driver doesn't need a visa. The truck company is allowed to operate in both countries. There's a reason the single market and customs union exist and look the way they do.
Because of Thatcherism, we can't get a good Brexit trade deal – here's why
15 January 2018
The Independent
The UK's approach to deregulation led to a bout of economic restructuring that now makes it difficult for Britain to impose its will on the rest of the world, let alone Europe.
Brussels raises prospect of longer Brexit transition
12 January 2018
Financial Times
“Many EU governments recognise that the transition will need to last beyond December 2020. But it suits the EU, like the UK, not to talk about that now,” said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank. “The UK would have to pay for single market access, which would require a new and difficult negotiation.”
UK could be locked to EU for longer as diplomats discuss extended transition period
12 January 2018
The Express
Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, said: “Many EU governments recognise that the transition will need to last beyond December 2020. “But it suits the EU, like the UK, not to talk about that now. “The UK would have to pay for single market access, which would require a new and difficult negotiation.”
Tok FM: Czy po spotkaniu Morawiecki-Juncker polski rząd może spać spokojnie?
11 January 2018
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska speaks to Tok FM about how she sees the meeting between the Polish prime minister and president Juncker as a good start, but more is needed to ease tensions between Warsaw and Brussels.
BBC Radio 4 - World at one: UK trade deals
10 January 2018
Sam Lowe speaks to the World at One about the UK’s prospects for a post-Brexit bespoke trade deal with EU? (from 8:50 mins).
Germany hostile to UK's '3-basket' Brexit plan as duo flies in for talks
10 January 2018
RT
Insiders say hostility from Germany remains Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, said: “German officials worry that clever British diplomacy would – with this model – enable the UK to ‘cherry-pick’ the bits of the single market that the UK wants to stay in, while it spurned those parts of the market it disliked."
UK parliament inflicts fresh defeat on PM May over Brexit
09 January 2018
Aljazeera
Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, said Wednesday's parliamentary vote would do little to change the mood in Brussels regarding Brexit. "They [EU leaders] have been pretty clear that negotiations have come to an end," Gostynska-Jakubowska told Al Jazeera.
UE-Wielka Brytania: Brexitu można jeszcze uniknąć
08 January 2018
Rzeczpospolita
Agata Gostyńska, ekspertka londyńskiego Centre for European Reform (CER), uważa, że do tej pory scenariusz organizacji ponownego referendum był mało prawdopodobny, bo sprzeciwiali mu się nie tylko torysi, ale także Partia Pracy Jeremy'ego Corbyna. Ten ostatni od lat był mocno sceptyczny wobec integracji.
Why Brussels is not buying Theresa May's 'No Deal' minister bluff
08 January 2018
The Telegraph
As Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, puts it. “The EU-27 do not take the threat of a UK walk out very seriously, believing that the consequences of no deal, while bad for the EU economy, would be catastrophic for the UK economy".
TPP: The UK is having a Pacific pipe dream
05 January 2018
Prospect
The DIT has suggested that Britain should join the Trans-Pacific Partnership — but who's to say that we'd be welcome?
Bratranci, ktorí sa potrebujú
05 January 2018
SME Daily (Slovakia)
Orbán viackrát zopakoval, že európska migračná politika zlyhala a krajiny Visegrádu mali vo svojom prístupe pravdu. „Keď odborníci priznali, že myšlienka kvót má svoje muchy, krajiny V4 mali možnosť zapojiť sa do tejto debaty. No namiesto toho si vybrali vzdorovitý protimigračný naratív, ktorý viac uškodil ich medzinárodnej reputácii a oslabil ich vplyv pri vyjednávaní,“ hovorí pre SME analytička Centra pre európsku reformu Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska.
Liam Fox says UK considering option of joining Pacific trade group
03 January 2018
The Guardian
Samuel Lowe, a trade expert at the Centre for European Reform, said ministers tried to downplay the gravity model because “it eventually says we shouldn’t leave the EU”. He said the “iron-law of trade” was that you always do more business with a large country nearby – and that as distance doubles, trade halves.
Brexit minister condemned by union for questioning civil servants' impartiality
01 January 2018
The Guardian
Steve Baker, a Brexit minister, refused to dismiss a claim that civil servants were rigging their Brexit analyses to show that the UK should stay in the customs union. The claim was made by the Tory Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg. He asked Baker if he had heard the claim from Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, that “officials in the Treasury have deliberately developed a model to show that all options other than staying in the customs union were bad and that officials intended to use this to influence policy”.
Tok FM: Jak Wielka Brytania radzi sobie z Brexitem?
27 December 2017
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska speaks to Tok FM and looks back at events in 2017, Brexit and lessons for Poland.
Die Rekruten: The reality show on the frontline of the German army's battle for public support
26 December 2017
The Guardian
“I cannot think of another country which is so sceptical about its own armed forces as Germany,” says Sophia Besch, a European defence expert at the Centre for European Reform in London. “As an institution,” she adds, “the Bundeswehr is incredibly insecure.” Forthright attempts after the war to ensure Germany’s newly formed armed forces did not forget the Nazi era are embodied in the concept of a soldier as a “citizen in uniform”. Besch says German soldiers are not allowed to dress up like their British and American counterparts. “It is no accident that they resemble bus drivers,” she adds.
How the EU failed to prevent the Catalan 'train crash'
26 December 2017
EU Observer
"I don't think the EU was not interested [in what was happening]," political scientist Camino Mortera-Martinez told EU observer. "Both the Spanish and the EU did not think it would go that far. It was unthinkable, even for Madrid."
Businesses WILL continue to choose UK over EU countries DESPITE Brexit, strategist says
22 December 2017
The Express
The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said in November that if the UK leaves the single market then financial firms will lose their EU passporting rights. He claimed the UK cannot “cherry pick” at aspects of the single market and it will lose the benefits of the single market when it leaves the European Union. Speaking at a conference by the Centre for European Reform, Mr Barnier said: “On financial services, UK voices suggest that Brexit does not mean Brexit. Brexit means Brexit, everywhere.