Voice of America, 25 August 2010
Kosovo indenpendence ruling watched around the world
"Basically, what the court's ruling means is whether secession is legal or not, is largely a political question. It comes down to whether enough countries recognise the entity that has seceded," said Valasek with the Centre for European Reform in London.

Prague Post, 18 August 2010
The downsides of German growth
"It is wrong to argue that Germany is the growth engine of the European economy, which is what we have seen argued in recent days," said Simon Tilford, chief economist with the Centre for European Reform.. "It is right to argue that it is a drag." This year's German trade surplus topped $ 77 billion through May, about 60 percent of that occurring within Europe. Restrained German wage growth - which actually declined in 2009 and is forecast to do so again in 2010 - made goods particularly competitive on international markets and spells bad news for European neighbours, like the Czech Republic, who seek to sell goods to German consumers, Tilford says.

Politics.co.uk, 13 August 2010
Cameron's EU budget calls undermined
Philip Whyte, senior research fellow at Centre for European Reform, warned that the arguments justifying Britain's ongoing rebate were being increasingly undermined, however. "This is a perennial issue on which the UK finds itself alone. The UK has a rebate under the EU budget. But the UK's position is becoming increasingly unstable." Mr Whyte warned that reforms of the common agricultural policy meant less and less of the EU budget was being spent on agriculture, the basis of Britain's rebate. "As the share of the budget spent on agriculture falls, the source of that mismatch disappears," he explained.

Chicago Tribune, 12 August 2010
Stonehenge visitor centre, Berlin palace among projects put on hold thanks to big deficits
Economist Simon Tilford at the CER said the cumulative impact of several years of predicted weak growth "will be considerable over the next decade, 15 years," especially in physical infrastructure and education. "What I fear is that the cuts will be made in the wrong places," he said, and hurt "many of the things that make Europe a good place to do business and have a high standard of living."

Georgian Daily, 8 August 2010
Georgia two years on, a future beyond war
In similarly 'realistic' fashion, both the desirability and the real prospect of Georgia joining Nato and the European Union have receded; thus the discrepancy between western politicians' words and actions is much clearer, and the EU itself has lost all appetite for expansion (see Katinka Barysch, 'Eastern Europe’s great game', 20 July 2010).

Radio Free Europe, 24 July 2010
Will New Diplomatic Service Help EU To Speak With One Voice?
"For the EU to be able to be a very effective actor abroad, it needs all of its member states to agree on the issue at stake -- be it what to do in Georgia or what to do with Russia," Clara O'Donnell, an analyst with the CER, explains. "And, secondly, it needs the member states to be willing to let the EU to speak on their behalf. Because what often happens is that the large member states quite like to maintain their bilateral channels to key players and so, often, while they're obviously allowing the EU to go and speak on their behalf, they also do it themselves and this [dilutes] the EU message and sometimes even contradicts it."

Marketplace, 23 July 2010
Europe's stress test ignoring default scenario
But Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform says Europe's stress tests are ignoring one scenario that seems very real "the ability of the banks to cope with a sizable restructuring slash default in Greece and/or other eurozone member states". He says national defaults remains likely, but that isn't being tested.

NPR, 23 July 2010 
As Germany's economy rebounds, anxiety prevails
"If German wages are falling, falling by 1.5 percent, the Greeks and the Italians, etc., have to make sure that their wages fall by even more than that. Now, that spells slump or at least very, very weak growth. Very weak growth or slump is lethal for economies as indebted as these economies, because slump, deflation implies increases in the real value of debt." [Simon Tilford] warns that another giant obstacle to Germany's speedy recovery is what he calls the country's dangerous over-reliance on exports. ... Germany cannot use exports to lift the eurozone out of its crisis. "Germany has been a huge drag on the eurozone economy because its growth has been dependent almost exclusively on exports. Domestic demand in Germany has been stagnant …  Now that has led to the emergence of an enormous trade surplus in Germany with the rest of the eurozone. Now, that's not a model that everyone can follow simultaneously. That's a mathematical impossibility. One country's surplus is another country's deficit," … Tilford also warns that Berlin's federal budget cuts — the biggest austerity plans in the post-war era — are "the last thing the eurozone needs right now." He says Germany needs to spend, invest and consume more domestically if the eurozone is to pull out of the sovereign debt crisis.

Los Angeles Times, 22 July 2010
Tests of EU banks are a whitewash, some critics say
"It doesn't test the banks for what investors are fearful of," said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London. "Stress tests are the way to go, but of course the tests have to be tough enough.... I don't think these tests are of particularly enormous value."

The New York Times, 21 July 2010 
Opportunity for EU sway in Ukraine
"There is a massive sense of frustration in Brussels because no matter what the EU offers, it receives only empty promises by the Ukrainian authorities," said Katinka Barysch, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform in London.

Presseurop, 19 July 2010 
Those work-shy Europeans
In Europe, argues Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform think tank, many let others foot the bill for their time off. For example by claiming, in the name of social justice, early retirement for which they have not paid contributions. It's absurd, he says. In the long run, Tilford continues, the European model of exchanging money for leisure time is in jeopardy. ... If Europeans succeed in growing their productivity, concludes Tilford, they can continue cultivating their love of leisure.