Centre for European Reform

 “Things are moving in the right direction,” says Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform (CER).Nonetheless, Labour is so paralysed by Brexit that despite its hunt for growth, it has said nothing about the monumental sums that leaving the EU have cost the economy. Estimates vary, but the CER sets our losses at 5% of GDP.

The near-term implications of higher German fiscal spending could even be dovish at the margin, according to Sander Tordoir, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform.“The upward shift in Bund yields since the announcement may not have prompted spreads to widen, but it does raise borrowing costs for fiscally constrained member-states,” he says.

Even in the short term, exclusion from the funds is not necessarily a calamity for Britain either, argues Sander Tordoir, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform (CER).“The €150bn fund is not a big deal,” he says. “It’s merely back-to-back loans where the commission passes slightly lower borrowing rates on to member-states.

« Je ne suis pas si convaincu : il a déjà été difficile pour les chrétiens-démocrates allemands d’accepter que l’Allemagne effectue une augmentation des dépenses si massives ; ajouter un emprunt européen à cela me semble politiquement délicat. Je pense que cela pourrait advenir si la situation sécuritaire de l’Europe se détériorait encore plus dramatiquement : par exemple, si les États-Unis retiraient leurs troupes d’Europe ou si le front ukrainien s’effondrait, analyse Sander Tordoir du groupe de réflexion Centre for European Reform.