Press

PM's Brexit negotiator jets into Brussels to thrash out a temporary Customs Union compromise

15 May 2019
The Sun
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said: “Many people in Brussels expect a further extension of Article 50, well into 2020. They think that the EU will continue to extend Article 50 rather than be seen to promote no deal.”

May tells Corbyn Brexit vote MUST BE DELIVERED ON – new vote date set on deal

15 May 2019
The Express
Charles Grant, of the Centre for European Reform think-tank, reports that Brussels officials are expecting Britain to return with another request to delay Brexit. Mr Grant said: “Some senior figures in Brussels expect the British to receive an extension till June 2020. “That is the latest possible date for the EU to agree on its next seven-year budget plan, the multiannual financial framework that starts in 2021, without serious problems arising.”

Brexit: May to face MPs as rebels warn she risks defeat on deal in June – live news

15 May 2019
The Guardian
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, has just published a very good paper addressing exactly this question. Here is an extract.EU officials don’t trust British MPs to prevent no deal and some of them think it could happen by accident. For example, what if a Boris Johnson-type figure became prime minister in October, and he or she was determined to leave without a deal?

Millennials create own political parties as European Union elections loom

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska
15 May 2019
NBC News
“Those parties which are more radical in their message, including pro-European parties, will probably attract more voters,” said Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank in Brussels. “The result will be that the next European Parliament will be more fragmented. It will be harder to garner a majority to push through legislation.”

Brexit from Brussels

15 May 2019
Financial Times
UK Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins is in Brussels for day two of talks with the EU, this time with his commission counterpart Sabine Weyand. Charles Grant at the CER lays out how some of the EU27’s unity is cracking but exasperation with the Brits is undiminished: “The conduct of the British political class has eroded much of the goodwill that European politicians and officials felt towards the UK. If the British wish to avoid no deal by asking for further extensions they should avoid losing the remaining goodwill that still lingers in certain capitals.”

May to meet Corbyn TONIGHT as cross-party Brexit talks teeter on the brink of collapse

14 May 2019
The Daily Mail
Today it emerged that EU officials are already talking about a further extension of Article 50 to June 2020 because they don't expect any breakthrough in Westminster before the current October 31 deadline, according Charles Grant from the respected Centre for European Reform.

Tok FM: Co czeka polski biznes, jeśli dojdzie do brexitu?

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska
13 May 2019
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform commented on the European Parliament and Brexit.

Why Europe's capital cities are pulling away from their countries – and what we can do about it

Christian Odendahl, John Springford
13 May 2019
CityMetric
Europe’s capital cities are much more productive than smaller cities and towns: the average metropolitan worker produces about 50 per cent more output than workers elsewhere. The divide between capitals and everywhere else is growing, too.

EU economies have converged since last elections

Christian Odendahl
13 May 2019
The Financial Times
Christian Odendahl, economist at the Centre for European Reform, said that restrictive monetary and fiscal policy and fiscal austerity were contributory factors.“It was only in 2012, when Europe threw some dogmas out of the window, that the eurozone stabilised,” Mr Odendahl and colleagues wrote in a recent paper.

Una política migratoria a la espera de medidas a largo plazo

Camino Mortera-Martinez
13 May 2019
El Pais
Con la migración convertida en arma política y en gasolina para partidos populistas y xenófobos en toda la Unión, no es previsible que en la próxima legislatura se hable de potenciar las vías regulares de entrada a Europa, explica Camino Mortera-Martínez, investigadora del Centro para la Reforma Europea (CER, en inglés).

Así será la UE sin Londres

Camino Mortera-Martinez
12 May 2019
La Vanguardia
Con el Brexit, los abanderados del liberalismo pierden fuerza, y Francia y Alemania encontrarán menos resistencias. “Vamos a perder a un defensor muy importante del libre comercio, lo que tendrá sus consecuencias. En este terreno, el Reino Unido siempre estaba contrapuesto a Francia. Y Macron, detrás de su discurso proeuropeo, sigue siendo muy de barrer para casa. Seguimos teniendo países muy nacionalistas para que los liberales se permitan el lujo de perder alguno”, dijo a La Vanguardia Camino Mortera-Martínez, analista del Centre for European Reform.

TVN24: Gostyńska, Smolar i Kędzierski o wyborach do europarlamentu

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska
11 May 2019
Gośćmi Macieja Wierzyńskiego byli Agata Gostyńska z Centre for European Reform w Londynie, prezes Fundacji Batorego i współzałożyciel Europejskiej Rady Polityki Międzynarodowej Aleksander Smolar oraz doktor Marcin Kędzierski z Klubu Jagiellońskiego i Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Krakowie. Rozmowa dotyczyła nadchodzących wyborów do Parlamentu Europejskiego.

Berlin's confounding productivity gap

11 May 2019
Bloomberg
The bustling German capital scores poorly on a scale of meeting its economic potential. But do its residents care?

La victoria de Sánchez da alas a España para reclamar más peso en la UE

Camino Mortera-Martinez
10 May 2019
Swiss Info
"El Brexit es una oportunidad de oro para que Espana recupere el papel que le corresponde por peso economico y demogra¡fico en la UE", asegura a la AFP Camino Mortera, del centro de reflexian brita¡nico Centre for European Reform (CER).

The EU stuck together on Brexit. Can it remain united on future issues?

Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska
10 May 2019
The Christian Science Monitor
“You can’t compare the Brexit negotiations with talks on any other EU policy,” says Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, a researcher at the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank. “They are about something much more fundamental. The dynamic is unique.”

Los líderes de los 27 aprueban una declaración vaga e insuficiente tres años después del Brexit

Camino Mortera-Martinez
09 May 2019
El Mundo
Tras tres años en los que Bruselas sólo ha tenido ojos y manos para Brexit, dejando en segundo plano cuestiones vitales, en Sibiu los 27 hicieron un ejercicio más cosmético que de calado, porque la fractura es notable. En una Declaración tan rimbombante como vacía, los gobiernos se comprometieron a "defender una sola Europa", a "estar unidos pase lo que pase", a "buscar siempre soluciones conjuntas" a "proteger nuestro modo de vida, la democracia y el estado de Derecho" y a "cumplir allí donde sea más necesario". Muy bonito, muy de 'tuit' y de 'meme', pero tan genérico como insuficiente. "Un poco como los votos matrimoniales, que se rompen casi inevitablemente según pasa el tiempo", en palabras de Camino Mortera, investigadora del Centre for European Reform.

Europa busca su sitio en el debate político español

Camino Mortera-Martinez
09 May 2019
El Pais
La investigadora Camino Mortera-Martínez, del laboratorio de ideas europeo Centre for European Reform, lo ve como un reflejo de dejadez política. “Sorprende mucho que tanto la política europea como la política exterior en general estuvieran tan ausentes del debate público. En países como Alemania, Francia o Reino Unido no ocurre. Tiene que ver con la mayor dejadez que ha tenido la posición de España en los últimos años”, argumenta Mortera-Martínez.

After Khashoggi

Beth Oppenheim
09 May 2019
The Financial Times
Beth Oppenheim at the Centre for European Reform thinks it’s time for the EU to hold a united front against the Saudi regime by restricting arms exports and backing a UN-led investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The left behind have had a better deal in the old world

Christian Odendahl, John Springford
09 May 2019
The Financial Times
Even when the worst inequality has been avoided, income growth has been sluggish, and worse than that in many places. Above all, acute inequality between regions within European nations is a major problem, as highlighted in a new report from the Centre for European Reform.

QMV + CFSP = A-OK

09 May 2019
Berlin Policy Journal
It is too easy for individual member states to block EU sanctions or diplomatic statements. Extending majority voting to foreign policy would encourage greater unity.