Research

Tre getingar till Reinfeldt som EU-ordförande

Clara Marina O'Donnell
29 December 2009
Sidan 4: Debatt
Statsministern och hans team var kompetenta förhandlare. Men de stora framgångarna lyste med sin frånvaro under ordförandeskapet, skriver Clara Marina O'Donnell.

Missing another EU opportunity

18 November 2009
The Guardian
When Britain's foreign secretary, David Miliband, made clear that he was not interested in being the European Union's new "high representative" for foreign policy, the UK lost a unique opportunity to craft the EU more in its own image.

Israel's dark view of the world

13 November 2009
The Guardian
The official explained to Bibi Netanyahu that if there was a peace settlement, extra investment would push Israel's longterm growth rate from 5% a year to 7%. The Israeli prime minister responded that if the country had 5% growth, it did not need peace.
Netanyahu was joking, according to the official...

Is Tony Blair the right man to be president of Europe?

Charles Grant, Henry Porter, commentator for The Observer
25 October 2009
The Observer
Yes, says Charles Grant. His presence would improve the global credibility of the EU. No, says Henry Porter. He co-authored the Iraq war and is not a convinced democrat.

Blair would be a good choice for Europe

07 October 2009
Financial Times
If the Lisbon treaty enters into force, which seems likely, the European Union will appoint a president to chair the European Council, which brings together the heads of government.

Look who's sclerotic

Simon Tilford
28 September 2009
International Herald Tribune
A popular Continental misconception about Britain is that it is some kind of ultra-free economy where there is limited social welfare and where the market has been introduced into every aspect of life.

Obama's missile defense change shows different targets

Tomas Valasek
21 September 2009
Yale Global Online
Washington rankled some of its European allies and delighted Moscow on September 17 when president Obama cancelled plans to build missile defense bases in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Warsaw warms to Moscow

Tomas Valasek
18 September 2009
The Guardian
Tabloids make a poor guide to understanding a country's policy. While the newspaper headlines in Poland and the Czech Republic scream of the US "betraying" eastern Europe by cancelling missile defence bases there, the official reaction in Warsaw and Prague has been muted.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: does the EU club have a future?

Simon Tilford
14 September 2009
The Telegraph
Simon Tilford from the Centre for European Reform says British Euro-sceptics like to have their cake and eat it: “In short, Britain could enjoy all the benefits of access to the single market but none of the costs. This is incoherent. A retreat would achieve nothing but impotence.” 

Missile strategy must not be seen as a retreat

Tomas Valasek
09 September 2009
Financial Times
There are mounting indications that Barack Obama will soon abandon plans to put missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. These have become one of the main bones of contention between Russia and the west.

Germany owes Afghanistan an explanation

Tomas Valasek
09 September 2009
The Guardian
Finger pointing is the defence of the concerned and the cornered. So it reflects very poorly on Nato that allies are bickering with one another over an attack that killed an unknown number of Afghan civilians last week.

Why Barroso deserves another go

09 September 2009
The Guardian
Next week the European parliament votes on whether to give José Manuel Barroso a second term as president of the European commission.

Germany will not drive a European recovery

Simon Tilford
01 September 2009
Financial Times
The European Union’s biggest member goes to the polls in less than four weeks. Yet while Germany’s economic prospects rest precariously on a recovery in foreign demand, the campaign has been free of any real debate about the country’s extraordinary export dependence. This is worrying.
A sustainable EU economic recovery requires...

Is Ukraine fit for the EU?

Tomas Valasek
24 August 2009
The Wall Street Journal
The European Union just helped put together a consortium of international banks to offer Kiev up to $3.6 billion in loans to buy Russian gas.

How to make Europe's military work

16 August 2009
Financial Times
The European Union is justly proud of its "soft power" – its prosperity, stability and commitment to multilateral institutions have won admirers the world over.

China - A hard turn

07 August 2009
Prospect
The Uighur protests could strengthen the hand of China's hardliners - at a cost to us all writes Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform.

Economic liberalism in retreat

Simon Tilford
16 July 2009
The New York Times
Is the brief flowering of economic liberalism in Europe over? It is too soon to read the last rites, but the prognosis is not good.
The financial crisis, the subsequent discrediting of the Anglo-Saxon economies and the passing of the most economically liberal European Commission there has ever been have put liberal economic thinking on the defensive.

Logic in Europe's military could check spending

Tomas Valasek
16 July 2009
Financial Times
When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object bad things usually happen. And so it will be next year when spending cuts imposed by the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression meet the rising demands of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The UK government may have to cut non-defence...

Europe and Russia's continental rift

Katinka Barysch
13 July 2009
Time Europe
Russia's economy - until recently one of the fastest growing in Europe - is in dire straits. In the first three months of this year, output fell by 10% compared with a year earlier.

The eurosceptic illusion

Simon Tilford
05 July 2009
The Guardian
Britain's Eurosceptics need to come clean. The media and political class have a right to be sceptical about the EU, even hostile to it. But they also have an obligation to be honest about the economic implications of a retreat from full membership of the union.
Their failure to do so...

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