Press
European debt crisis: leaders ponder fiscal union
15 September 2011
The Guardian
"This may not be politically feasible," says Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think-tank. "A fiscal union and eurobonds could help, but it will mean the southern countries giving up economic sovereignty. Berlin could destroy the euro if it goes on like this. "Its over-zealous discipline and austerity medicine is not going to work. Besides all this economic government stuff is irrelevant to the euro crisis. It's now a crisis of growth, of banking, with liquidity drying up.
Analysis - Austerity pressure grows on Irish coalition
15 September 2011
Reuters
"If they are trimming fat off the state, there won't be huge political ramifications, in fact they might get credit for that," said Hugo Brady, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. "But if they cut what is seen as the family silver, or fire sale state assets for less than they are worth, this will make Labour's position more difficult. … If there is a flurry of defaults, all bets are off," said Brady.
The crisis in a nutshell: "A dangerous new phase" for Europe
15 September 2011
The New Yorker
"Greece can always choose to leave. As long as all this is between freely consenting adults, it's not that undemocratic." Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform.
Britain balks at EU defence plan
13 September 2011
The New York Times
"There is a semi-detachment which even some senior British diplomats are concerned about," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform. "The DNA of the old-school British diplomat said that you have to be in the room when the decision is taken to shape the debate. But the Tory leadership doesn't seem to worry about that.
EU plans to exclude wayward Schengen nations
12 September 2011
Financial Times
"Any move to exclude countries would clearly be targeting Greece, among others, which has been a problem for Schengen ever since it joined in 2000," says Hugo Brady, fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank.
Western alliance: European cutbacks raise US concerns
12 September 2011
Financial Times
Instead, as Tomas Valasek of the Centre for European Reform has argued, Europe will see the emergence of what he calls "islands of co-operation".
Europe nosedives as central banker quits and Greece looks set to spin out of control
10 September 2011
International Herald Tribune
Charles Grant, the director of the think-tank Centre for European Reform, said: "In opposing the bond purchase scheme they are basically saying the euro should not survive in its current form. The only reason the ECB is buying these bonds is to prop up the current system." Mr Grant argued that if Mr Stark's departure led to a more united ECB then it would be good news. "I hope Mr Weidmann learns to be a team player, which Weber and Stark weren't," he said.
Europe is urged to take bolder action on debt
09 September 2011
The New York Times
Simon Tilford, the chief economist of the Centre for European Reform in London, is among those who say Europe should not be looking to the United States or China or Japan for much additional help — at least for now. "What we'll see in coming months is the Americans and Asians will become more open in their expression of concern about way the Europeans are handling the crisis, because unless they do address key problems, including the banks, there is a risk this is going to trigger a Lehman 2 … They recognise Europe's strategy is not working, and they are starting to panic."
Russian plane crash clouds Putin's goals
09 September 2011
Bloomberg
Still, the accidents may generate sympathy for Russia and its leaders, Tomas Valasek, director of foreign policy and defence at the London-based Centre for European Reform, said in a telephone interview yesterday. While regional airlines may be "decrepit," the flagship carrier OAO Aeroflot has one of Europe’s newest fleets, he said. "I don’t know how you draw generalisations for Russia from this incident," Valasek said. "It appears to have been a pilot error and it says nothing about the safety of the airport."
Book review - Innovation in Europe lacks 'creative destruction': CER report states
08 September 2011
EurActiv
European innovation policies lack the "creative destruction" widely accepted in the US, raising barriers for businesses seeking to find new ideas and applications, according to a report compiled by the Centre for European Reform, a British think-tank.
In the report, entitled 'Innovation: How Europe can take off',
...
In the report, entitled 'Innovation: How Europe can take off',
...
Migration: To open the borders or not?
08 September 2011
European Voice
Hugo Brady, who follows EU migration policy for the CER, a London-based think-tank, does not believe that calls for a more rational debate are necessarily realistic. "It might be intellectually coherent to say that we need 50 million immigrants to keep Europe's economic growth going over the next decades," he says. "But Europe does not have the social and political capacity to deal with massive immigration."
Europe steers into a zone of uncertainty
08 September 2011
The New York Times
Inaction to fix the banking sector also troubles markets, said Simon Tilford, an economist with the Centre for European Reform in London, because it "highlights a willful refusal to recognise the core of the crisis, which is the collapse of economic activity and low economic growth." Without growth, he said, there is no easy way forward; growth cannot be produced by austerity or by structural reforms, even if those may help later.
German court rejects challenges to euro bailouts
07 September 2011
The New York Times
"The court ruling removes a substantive obstacle, but there’s no doubt that the situation still looks pretty grave," said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London. The underlying problems of heavily indebted states and weak, undercapitalised banks still have to be addressed to find a long-term solution, Mr. Tilford said.
Europe faces plague of low growth and high debt
06 September 2011
The New York Times
"A lot of countries are going to take a permanent hit to their trend rate of growth," said Philip Whyte, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a research group in London. "This is not an ordinary recession, and so we’re not going to see countries bouncing back to precrisis rates of growth." ..."They’re going through some truly horrible times," said Mr Whyte of the CER. "I’m very worried about the whole southern European fringe, not just on an 18-month to two-year view but looking out a decade or longer."
Libya's dark lesson for NATO
04 September 2011
The New York Times
Some defence experts, like Tomas Valasek of the London-based Centre for European Reform, suggest that Washington's diplomacy worked, in that during the Libyan conflict "the allies established a new division of labour for NATO operations on Europe's borders, which should be encouraged."
New Conservatism in Europe impedes two of its nations
03 September 2011
The New York Times
"Some EU countries are saying, Let us learn from the lesson of Greece," said Hugo Brady, a researcher at the Centre for European Reform. "‘Let us be conservative with Romania and Bulgaria."
Eurozone nearing Greek collateral compromise
01 September 2011
Reuters
Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform in London said the Finnish attitude was harmful for Europe. "That is an attitude that if it materialised in Germany would be very dangerous," Barysch said. "The only good solution I can imagine is to get rid of this. If the Greeks were able to give collateral for all the bonds they issue or for the money we lend them, they wouldn't need us anyway."
Why the EU and Turkey need to co-ordinate their foreign policies
31 August 2011
Carnegie
The idea of an EU-Turkey foreign policy dialogue has been catching on in European and Turkish policy circles over the last couple of years.
Bad start for EU’s defence procurement directive
31 August 2011
Defence News
“If member-states finish transposition in the next few months, then it’s not such a problem, but if they take a year or more, then it causes a problem,” said Clara O’Donnell, a researcher at the Centre for European Reform in London. O’Donnell said she expects member states to exploit loopholes in the directive, such as a clause allowing them to reserve contracts for domestic firms by citing national security interests.
Finland could upend fragile consensus on Greece
28 August 2011
New York Times
"In countries like Finland, the opposition to what are described as bailouts is huge," said Philip Whyte, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London. "Governments are politically constrained."