Press

As Ian Bond of the Centre for European Reform notes in a recent paper, “Western governments and dissident movements in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union used its human rights commitments as standards to which they could hold communist regimes accountable, putting them on the defensive and gradually increasing the pressure on them to take steps to implement what they had signed up to. Mikhail Gorbachev could argue that his reforms merely implemented principles that the Soviet Union had already signed up to.” 

Europe’s banking sector is "riding the wave of deregulation fetish even if profitability has been improving dramatically” as a result of the European Central Bank’s higher interest rates, said Sander Tordoir, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform.

“It was a very unusual assembly,” says Ian Bond, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform. “The fact that two sides that were brandishing nuclear weapons at each other were nonetheless able to find an agreement of this sort, is pretty extraordinary in itself.”

It might nevertheless be one of the better results Europe could have obtained, said Aslak Berg, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London.“A lot of the initial reaction is that this a political defeat, this is a humiliation for the European Union,” Mr Berg said. He added: “Is it what the EU wanted? No. Is it ideal? No. But if this agreement sticks — big if — it will provide a certain degree of predictability.”

Kokeneen brittiläisen ulko- ja turvallisuuspolitiikan asiantuntijan, suurlähettiläs Ian Bondin mielestä Etyjin rooli Euroopan turvallisuusarkkitehtuurissa on pitkälti unohtunut, ja pääsyyllinen siihen on Vladimir Putinin johtama Venäjä.– Putin on 25-vuotisen virkakautensa aikana rikkonut kaikkia kymmenen Helsingin periaatetta ja monia muita Etyj-sitoumuksia, sotilaallisen avoimuuden periaate mukaan lukien, Centre for European Reform -ajatushautomon apulaisjohtajana toimiva Bond kirjoittaa.

Sander Tordoir, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, and a former European Central Bank official, blames the poor trade terms secured by the EU on the unwillingness of Brussels to retaliate.“Brussels talked a big game about readiness for a trade war - but failed to load the retaliation gun,” he says.

Een deal is een opluchting, maar het zal volgens Sander Tordoir niet zomaar alle onzekerheid wegnemen. Hij is hoofdeconoom bij de Berlijnse denktank Centre for European Reform en volgt de geopolitieke ontwikkelingen rondom de handelsoorlog op de voet. "Deals worden vaak opgebroken, dat is niet fijn voor handelspartners." Ook vindt hij dat de EU zwak heeft onderhandeld.