Research
BBC Radio 4 Today: Brexit negotiations
01 September 2017
Charles Grant speaks to John Humphreys about the Brexit negotiations (from 1h 34m).
Tok FM: The Brexit negotiations
31 August 2017
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska talks to Tok FM about the third round of Brexit negotiations.
BBC World Service Newshour: How are the Brexit negotiations going?
31 August 2017
Veteran Europe watcher Charles Grant, Director of the Centre for European Reform, assesses the state of Brexit negotiations as the third round of talks ends.
Tory Remainers claim Labour's single market shift is sending a hard Brexit 'down the pan'
29 August 2017
The Daily Mail
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, told the paper: 'Many top officials in the EU and governments would welcome an offer of €10 billion a year for three years as part of a transitional deal that would move the talks forward. 'If the British . . . make a serious offer on the money . . . they will not only put the EU on the defensive, they will also expose divisions on how to respond to the money deadlock.'
EU's Brexit negotiator tells UK to speed up and 'get serious'
29 August 2017
The Guardian
Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, gave a similar account in a Guardian comment article, saying that “hardliners” around Barnier were blocking this option.
Jean-Claude Juncker's frosty verdict
29 August 2017
Channel 4 News
In the Guardian today, Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform suggests that the EU might settle for EU60b and that subscriptions for a transition lasting a few years could bring the two negotiating sides’ numbers much closer than might be thought.
Conservatives come together to sell a Brexit transition
29 August 2017
Financial Times
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, says Mrs May will end up in the same position. “There is only one model of transition that’s conceivable for our partners and that’s the single market with no votes for the British,” he says.
Brexit: Londres nuance sa position
28 August 2017
Le Monde
Simon Tilford, du cercle de réflexion Centre for European Reform, compare son pays à un homme ivre revenant à la réalité : "Le Royaume-Uni est en train de dégriser".
The real problem with Brexit talks is there are hardliners on both sides
28 August 2017
The Guardian
Will the October summit of EU heads of government deem that “sufficient progress” has been made in the UK’s talks on leaving the EU?
New US ambassador to NATO brings relief and pledges of continued support
28 August 2017
Deutsche Welle
Ian Bond, foreign policy director at the Centre for European Reform, takes a more critical view of Trump's overall staffing policy when it comes to diplomacy. While acknowledging he doesn't know Hutchison's record in depth, he says the most important point is that the job is being filled at all and by someone with a long record in public policy.
The Express: Trump won't sign UK trade deal until President is certain Brexit will succeed
25 August 2017
The US President will be advised to wait before finalising a new trade deal with the UK after Brexit, according to Charles Grant director of the CER.
The UK's tentative roadmap out of Europe
24 August 2017
The Atlantic
John Springford, the director of research at the London-based Centre for European Reform, told me Britain’s silence on the divorce bill issue has more to do with its unpopularity at home than negotiating tactics. “The British public and [those to] the right of the Conservative party do not want to pay billions of billions of pounds to the EU,” he said, adding: “The more specific the number, the more difficult the political hit that Theresa May and her government will take.”
Two years after opening Germany's doors to refugees, Angela Merkel stands tall. How has she done it?
24 August 2017
The Telegraph
It seems voters have not just forgiven Merkel for the refugee crisis, they have forgotten about it as well: immigration is ranked at the bottom of the list of topics influencing this year’s election, with only 29 per cent of voters citing it as an important issue.
UK paves way for compromise over ECJ jurisdiction post-Brexit
23 August 2017
Financial Times
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think-tank, said: “The UK is moving towards asking for a transitional deal that would resemble membership in many respects and would include acceptance of ECJ rulings.”
RTÉ News: Theresa May insists the UK will leave ECJ jurisdiction after Brexit
23 August 2017
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska talks to RTÉ news about court jurisdiction with the UK's withdrawal from the EU. (01.59)
Davis proposes post-Brexit dispute mechanism on EU relations
21 August 2017
Financial Times
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said that from his conversations in Berlin, Paris and Brussels, the EU would be “quite prepared to live with a dispute settlement mechanism modelled on the Efta court”...
...Mr Grant said the Canada deal did not cover complex areas such as financial services, aviation and security co-operation, and he argued that the key was to set up a new court in which Britain could claim to be “an equal” to the EU.
...Mr Grant said the Canada deal did not cover complex areas such as financial services, aviation and security co-operation, and he argued that the key was to set up a new court in which Britain could claim to be “an equal” to the EU.
The end of Schulz? Former EU chief faces German election WIPEOUT
21 August 2017
The Express
Economist Christian Odendahl and Sophia Besch, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, wrote in a joint paper: “Schulz, an outsider to Berlin politics, entered the race as a candidate promising to bring change. But the Social Democrats have failed to deliver: their programme struggles to distinguish itself from Merkel’s platform.
If the German left want to succeed, it must offer more than Merkel's status quo
18 August 2017
The Guardian
The German elections on 24th September are bound to be boring. Polls show Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) leading the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) by 15 percentage points.
Hopes for European ‘safe’ bonds lean on pre-crisis techniques
17 August 2017
Financial Times
Christian Odendahl, chief economist at think-tank the Centre for European Reform, said that despite the efforts to distance the plan from the concept of debt mutualisation, Germany was likely to regard it with suspicion.
“The Germans feel that this is a clever way of persuading them to sign up to something which at least has the potential to become debt mutualisation by the back door,” he said. “Particularly if there was an agency doing the structuring and sales of these products, the markets would perceive that as 100 per cent safe and expect a bailout if it goes wrong.”
“The Germans feel that this is a clever way of persuading them to sign up to something which at least has the potential to become debt mutualisation by the back door,” he said. “Particularly if there was an agency doing the structuring and sales of these products, the markets would perceive that as 100 per cent safe and expect a bailout if it goes wrong.”
Brexit trade talks may be reduced to as little as 10 months
17 August 2017
The Guardian
If phase two slips to the end of the year, “it is not a huge problem for the EU, they know in terms of timing they have the upper hand,” said Christian Odendahl, Berlin representative for the Centre for European Reform think-tank.