Research
At best we'll get Canada plus! EU expert says the UK will pay a price for Canada deal
13 December 2017
The Express
Charles Grant, Director of the Centre for European Reform, said the UK will “at best” get a “Canada plus” deal but the EU will make Britain pay a price for it. Speaking on BBC Newsnight, he said: “They say it’s Norway or Canada, the British are probably going to ask for something that is neither. “Based on regularity alignment, we’d be almost in the single market, we’d be aligned with EU rules.” Mr Grant warned that if the UK changed the rules the EU would “punish us a bit” by removing access to the single market.
The biggest Brexit boon for Germany? Migration
12 December 2017
Financial Times
"The biggest gain for Germany will come if European migrants choose to work there, mitigating its growing shortage of workers, instead of in Britain."(Christian Odendahl and John Springford, Centre for European Reform)
Brexit: UK to lose 10,500 City jobs as 30 per cent of firms flag plans to move staff
11 December 2017
The Independent
The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier made it clear last month that, when the UK leaves the single market, financial services firms based in Britain will lose their “passporting” rights. “On financial services, UK voices suggest that Brexit does not mean Brexit. Brexit means Brexit, everywhere,” Mr Barnier told the Centre for European Reform last month.
When did we Brits become so thin-skinned?
11 December 2017
The New European
“I think there’s definitely a heightened sensitivity about this kind of coverage. There’s a strong thread of jingoism in the reaction which arises when (Brexiteers) are feeling insecure,” says economist Simon Tilford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform think-tank. “But if Britain is so confident why react so strongly?”
Newsnight: Is the Brexit deal unravelling?
11 December 2017
Charles Grant spoke to Evan Davis about if the Brexit deal wasunravelling, and what a EU-UK trade deal might look like? (from 13.00 mins).
Germany's biggest Brexit boon: Immigrants
11 December 2017
Politico
The UK’s inward turn could fix Germany’s skilled labor shortage.
Polskie Radio: Kompromis ws. Brexitu. "Wymęczone porozumienie"
11 December 2017
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska speaks to Polskie Radio about the sufficient progress in the Brexit talks.
Following Theresa May's great escape, Brexiters plan their final battle for Britain
10 December 2017
The Guardian
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said: “It suits both the UK government and the EU to pretend that the transition will last only about two years. In fact – as officials on both sides will admit in their more candid moments – it will have to be much longer. Building the border infrastructure at Channel ports will take several years, as will the new IT systems required for customs and registering EU immigrants. Above all, the negotiation of the future relationship – covering trade, research, security, defence and foreign policy – will take at least five years. So any attempt to limit the transition to two years would lead to a cliff-edge – of Britain leaving the single market without new arrangements being in place.”
Battles loom in UK over competing Brexit demands
09 December 2017
Agence France Presse
Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, agreed the full alignment reference was "radical"."It's almost inverted the logic of the no-deal outcome," he said. Brexiteers have long argued if Britain leaves the EU without agreeing terms it can fall back on World Trade Organisation rules. "There are a lot of imponderables. Whether this keeps the knives out of the prime minister's back is one of the most imponderable of all," Bond added.
Polskie Radio: Pierwsza faza rozmów brexitowych zakończona porozumieniem
09 December 2017
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska speaks to Polskie Radio about the agreement in the first phase of Brexit talks.
This Brexit deal is no 'breakthrough'. It is a complete capitulation
08 December 2017
The Telegraph
On November 29, Charles Grant, of the well-informed anti-Brexit think tank the Centre for European Reform, published his 10 predictions for the whole Brexit process. Within eight days, his first four – on Ireland, money, citizens’ rights and transition – have been proved correct.On citizens’ rights, for example, he foretold that: “May will accept that the Withdrawal Treaty, enshrining the rights of EU citizens, has greater legal force than any subsequent UK legislation. And she will agree that UK courts may refer cases on rights to the ECJ.”
CER podcast: Will there be reforms for the eurozone?
08 December 2017
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska and Sophia Besch review the Commission's new proposals for eurozone reform, and look at what EU leaders should discuss at the euro summit next week in Brussels.
Brexit negotiations will only get harder
08 December 2017
The Atlantic
“You could imagine that if she had won that election with a very big majority, that the right of the Conservative party would not be in the kind of position to dictate terms that it’s in now,” John Springford, the director of research at the London-based Centre for European Reform, told me in reference May’s failed election gambit in June. Though she called elections expecting to expand her majority in Parliament, her Conservative party instead lost the majority it had. “She would have much more authority and freedom for maneuver in the negotiations.”
May's Brexit deal wins her some peace at home
08 December 2017
The Daily Mail
"It means that 'no deal' overall is less likely," said Charles Grant, Director of the Centre for European Reform think-tank. But the toughest part of the negotiations could be yet to come, with Britain looking to agree a huge free trade deal before March 2019 - a tight timetable seen as unrealistic by Brussels. "In phase two it will emerge that the EU is going to give us a pretty bad deal in terms of what's in our economic interests," Grant said.
This Brexit shortcut looks like a dead end
08 December 2017
The Times
In its report on Canada-plus, the Centre for European Reform says Canada’s businesses “are aligning to European standards in many sectors like food, chemicals and electrical equipment. In contrast, the EU has not changed a single technical regulation in response to the agreement.” “Align” means for Canada, as it will for us, “fall into line”.
Brexit breakthrough? Yes, but now the hard work begins
08 December 2017
CNN Money
"For the moment, the UK still does not know what it wants," said Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. "The government hasn't made its position clear on what kind of future relationship it wants."
Marketplace: Angela Merkel's woes echo beyond Germany's borders
07 December 2017
John Springford of the Centre for European Reform said, given the political cloud still hanging over Merkel, she’s less likely to respond positively to Macron’s plan. “If she doesn’t have a stable coalition, it would be very difficult for her to give Macron very much at all,” he said (from 1 min 58).
Phase one of the Brexit talks is proving hard. Just wait for phase two
07 December 2017
The Economist
Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank, argues that phase two will be much tougher to negotiate than phase one. The clock is ticking towards March 29th 2019, when Brexit is due to happen. It will be hard to agree on a legally watertight, time-limited transition, not least because few experts think a new trade deal can be wrapped up (and ratified) within two years. And when it comes to the trade deal on offer, the EU will say that, if Britain insists on leaving the single market and customs union and retaining the option of regulatory divergence, it can only have a deal similar to Canada’s, which covers most goods but barely any services.
Phase 2 talks could be picked up in New Year - Varadkar
06 December 2017
RTE News
Director of the Centre for European Reform Charles Grant said he believes the recent setback on the border issue has weakened London's position and set off reverberations in Scotland, which will now seek a similar deal to Northern Ireland. Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Grant said unless Britain stays in the customs union and the single market, there will have to be border controls between the UK and the EU. He added that customs unions need to be policed and the British government appears to be avoiding this issue.
Nowe zmartwienia Polski i innych krajów „drugiej prędkości” w UE
06 December 2017
Deutsche Welle
W Brukseli nikt nie liczy, że rozstrzygające dyskusje w tych sprawach zaczną się przed sformowaniem nowego rządu w Niemczech. – Francuskie pomysły napotkają silny sprzeciw, bo rzucają wyzwanie gospodarczej ortodoksji w północnych krajach UE – tłumaczy Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska z Centre for European Reform, autorka analizy „Nowy deal dla eurolandu: lekarstwo czy placebo?”. Niemiecki minister finansów Peter Altmaier już wczoraj publicznie powątpiewał, czy strefa euro potrzebuje nowych narzędzi do pomocy w razie wstrząsów ekonomicznych.