Simon Tilford
Simon Tilford
Associate fellow
Areas of expertise
Britain and Europe, the euro, fiscal and monetary policy, labour and social policy, competition, innovation, environmental economics and demographics.
Twitter
EU learnt from Greek experience
Financial Times
09 May 2010
Sir, Lex on the Portuguese bail-out (May 4) implies that the International Monetary Fund would have imposed more rigorous criteria on the crisis-hit country than the “soft-touch” European Union.
Europe cannot afford to let Greece default
Financial Times
15 January 2010
The eurozone cannot afford to make an example of crisis-hit Greece. Claims by officials and politicians in the currency bloc's fiscally more robust economies - including Wolfgang Schauble, Germany's finance minister - that the Greeks will have to find their own way out of the crisis, are not credible.
Look who's sclerotic
International Herald Tribune
28 September 2009
A popular Continental misconception about Britain is that it is some kind of ultra-free economy where there is limited social welfare and where the market has been introduced into every aspect of life.
Germany will not drive a European recovery
Financial Times
01 September 2009
The European Union’s biggest member goes to the polls in less than four weeks. Yet while Germany’s economic prospects rest precariously on a recovery in foreign demand, the campaign has been free of any real debate about the country’s extraordinary export dependence. This is worrying.
A sustainable EU economic recovery requires...
A sustainable EU economic recovery requires...
Economic liberalism in retreat
The New York Times
16 July 2009
Is the brief flowering of economic liberalism in Europe over? It is too soon to read the last rites, but the prognosis is not good.
The financial crisis, the subsequent discrediting of the Anglo-Saxon economies and the passing of the most economically liberal European Commission there has ever been have put liberal economic thinking on the defensive.
The financial crisis, the subsequent discrediting of the Anglo-Saxon economies and the passing of the most economically liberal European Commission there has ever been have put liberal economic thinking on the defensive.
The eurosceptic illusion
The Guardian
05 July 2009
Britain's Eurosceptics need to come clean. The media and political class have a right to be sceptical about the EU, even hostile to it. But they also have an obligation to be honest about the economic implications of a retreat from full membership of the union.
Their failure to do so...
Their failure to do so...
The wages of recovery
The Wall Street Journal
15 April 2009
Everywhere in Europe the talk is of the need to cut costs. Companies have no choice but to respond to declining profits by reducing expenses.
A trade surplus is not always a sign of strength
Financial Times
04 March 2009
There has been a queue of commentators arguing that the strong economic performance of the US and the UK in the run-up to the financial crisis was an illusion, a product of excessive borrowing and an inflated financial sector.
Wij moeten de zwakke eurolanden helpen
NRC Handelsblad
02 March 2009
Twaalf maanden geleden leek het nog ondenkbaar dat een EU-lidstaat in een staatsschuldencrisis zou belanden. Toch behoort dit nu tot de mogelijkheden.
How to avoid a eurozone debt crisis
The Wall Street Journal
24 February 2009
Twelve months ago it seemed inconceivable that any European Union member could face a sovereign debt crisis. It would have been the stuff of fantasy to argue that Ireland or Austria could be among those at risk.