Research
China's Belt & Road: Building bridges not walls
18 May 2024
EU Reporter
Another to pick up on this is the highly respected Ian Bond, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform in the UK. He told this website, “When it was first conceived, the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’, linking China and Europe overland, seemed to offer Europe the chance to work with China on opening up Central Asia and giving new life to EU assistance programmes for the region that had been struggling along since the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Driving the day: Great expectations
16 May 2024
Politico
“A key question will be whether [Draghi] is going bold on fiscal integration,” said Sander Tordoir, a senior economist at the Centre for European Reform, which would mean “more solidarity and more discipline.” China is the other big question: “The entire Brussels consensus is still ‘let’s not be harsh on China, while they have not fully up their mind” on how to handle overproduction, dumping, and a landscape where the two biggest economies have abandoned free trade, he said.
Companies count the cost of compliance with green regulation
16 May 2024
Financial Times
In a recent analysis of EU policy-making, Zach Meyers, assistant director of the Centre for European Reform think-tank, says the European Commission, in its attempts to deal with crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change, “has become a more political body”. This means, he argues, that the EU “has lost one of its strengths: having a technocratic lawmaking body focused on designing laws based on evidence and good practice, and which is less beholden to short-term politics than the European parliament and European Council”.
Who is Russia's new defence minister Andrei Belousov, and why did Putin appoint him?
16 May 2024
Euronews
“If Belousov can ensure that money is spent more efficiently, then the pressure on Ukraine is likely to grow, and the threat to the rest of Europe will also increase,” Ian Bond, deputy director at the Centre for European Reform (CER), think-tank, told Euronews.
Judy Asks: Are Europeans prepared to send troops to Ukraine?
16 May 2024
Carnegie Europe
Deploying troops to Ukraine, even for non-combat duties, entails risks most European countries are currently unwilling to take. The priority right now must be ramping up aid to Kyiv.
Europe's new power map, from ASML to the Arctic
15 May 2024
Bloomberg
Sander Tordoir and Zach Meyers of the Centre for European Reform suggest more targeted support for areas of dominance like ASML's tech, a more pan-European approach to industrial policy and the creation of alliances with like-minded partners on chip supplychains.
CER Podcast: Unpacking Europe: How is China's foreign policy shifting?
15 May 2024
Charles Grant and Dr Yu Jie discuss China's foreign policy.
Europe’s economy is a cause for concern, not panic
14 May 2024
The Economist
Europe is back to having a trade surplus and a fiscal deficit that looks a lot better than America’s these days, points out Sander Tordoir of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank.
Putin-style law leaves Georgia at a crossroads
14 May 2024
Yorkshire Bylines
Ian Bond, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, also told this site, “The paradox of Georgia is that it has the most pro-EU population in the former Soviet space, and has come further than any other Eastern European country in tackling corruption, but it now has one of the most anti-EU governments, controlled from behind the scenes by an oligarch who made his money in Russia in the 1990s.
Far-right EU election gains could boost nationalist parties on home turf
11 May 2024
The Guardian
First, said Luigi Scazzieri of the Centre for European Reform (CER) think-tank, the parties that make up the current “grand coalition” of conservatives, socialists and liberals “are likely to lose a substantial number of seats, but maintain their overall majority”.
Pluses and minuses of the EU recovery fund
11 May 2024
Financial Times
Iain Begg sets out the problem lucidly in this article for the Centre for European Reform think-tank. Somehow, the EU must repay the debt incurred under the recovery fund. But will national governments be willing to pay more into the EU budget to do that? Will they approve the European Commission’s proposals for the EU to raise new forms of revenue on its own?
Halen geopolitiek en tijdgeest de Europese gedachte in?
10 May 2024
De Tijd
Volgens John Springfield van het Centre for European Reform zal de keuze tussen etnische homogeniteit en het in stand houden van de Europese welvaart de komende jaren acuut worden. Mensen van buiten de Europese Unie zijn nodig om de veroudering van de bevolking te compenseren.
The Spectator Podcast - Coffee House Shots: Can Lammy charm Trump?
09 May 2024
Charles Grant spoke on the Spectator podcast about David Cameron, David Lammy, Donald Trump and China.
Europe to fund Ukraine weapons with profits from frozen Russian assets
09 May 2024
Voice of America
Ian Bond, a foreign policy analyst and Russia specialist at the Centre for European Reform, said Brussels could go further. "What the EU is talking about is not seizing the principal - but using the interest [from frozen Russian assets], which might amount to seven or $8 billion a year and using that for the benefit of Ukraine," Bond told VOA.
“Immigration necessary to sustain European economic system”
09 May 2024
EU News
A study by John Springford of the CER argues that boosting arrivals from non-European countries is necessary to safeguard the welfare system and overcome labour shortages.
A redemptive moment for EU-UK relations
09 May 2024
Financial Times
Anton Spisak, the former UK government official and Centre for European Reform associate fellow who Miliband credited at the end of his speech, isn’t certain where Labour ends up on that question, but he is clear that nothing can really change without a political paradigm shift at the top of the British government and the EU.
It's up to the EU to hold back the great tech decoupling
03 May 2024
EurActiv
EU countries can no longer ignore growing pressure from countries seeking a tougher line on China, nor can they ignore China’s efforts to replace Western firms in high-tech supply chains.
The week that summed up the performative and inept nature of Brexit
02 May 2024
Financial Times
That reality is central to the observation made by John Springford of the Centre for European Reform in his contribution to an excellent collection of essays on Labour and the economy produced by the Social Market Foundation think-tank (worth your time). Springford makes the obvious point that given the political constraints on alignment and not joining the EU single market and customs union, Labour is unlikely to offer “a dramatically different change of direction” if it wins power at the next general election.
Immigration can help Europe bridge the demographic deficit
02 May 2024
Financial Times
The radical right is likely to make big gains in the European parliament elections next month, with the “great replacement’ theory — that liberal elites are promoting immigration from outside Europe to undermine ethnic and cultural homogeneity — becoming increasingly influential.
TV-Sondersendung zur Europawahl: Kann es sein, dass Polen uns bald abhängt?
01 May 2024
Focus Online
„Es scheint, dass wir ein bisschen zu sehr schwarzmalen“, sagt Wirtschaftswissenschaftler Sander Tordoir. Aber er sieht auch die Gefahr, dass China und die USA ihre Vormachtstellung ausnutzen, um Europa zu spalten.