Press

In an invaluable new paper Sam Lowe looks in detail at the kind of alternative arrangements that would be needed to keep the Border free of physical infrastructure and associated checks after Brexit.He points out that, even if efficient systems of online predeclaration of goods, trusted trader schemes and tracking technology are developed, some checks will still be necessary away from the Border. And any system would require an intensification in anti-smuggling measures near the Border, either through intelligence-led policing or electronic surveillance.

“There will be a push for more environmental policies in Europe,” said Camino Mortera-Martinez, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank. “Co-ordination with the US will depend on who is president and on how strongly candidates in the election will push for a Green New Deal.”

"Ultimately, the question of whether the Withdrawal Agreement could ever be reopened is entirely political: is it in the EU's interest to do so?" the Centre for European Reform's trade guru Sam Lowe tells me. "Nothing about the proposals being put forward by some of the leadership candidates suggests it is."

"I think the first thing that we're going to see is a clarification of Labour's position on Brexit," said Camino Mortera-Martinez, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. "They cannot sit on the fence any longer. They might finally become the party of remain and the second referendum."

Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann shouldn’t succeed European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, and no other German ought to get the job either, according to Centre for European Reform Chief Economist Christian Odendahl. In a report that he quips may cost him his German passport, the Berlin-based analyst argues that Weidmann is “too conservative” for a role that might require bold action, while the region’s most populous country and biggest economy already has enough influence in the running of the euro area.