Research
'Impossible position': Brexit is going nowhere fast
11 May 2018
CNN Money
"We are in a period in paralysis," said John Springford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform. "The reason for that is all of the various bits of Brexit that are hardest to deal with are coming together at once."
Fox can still sign trade deals with one hand tied behind his back
11 May 2018
The Times
Sam Lowe, a trade wonk at the Centre for European Reform, has suggested that Britain could take a prominent role in driving forward the Trade in Services Agreement, a stalled deal between 23 WTO members, including the EU, to liberalise trade in sectors such as transport and telecommunications.
Brexit could bring back bad old days of 'Costa del Crime', warns MEP
10 May 2018
The Guardian
Camino Mortera-Martinez, a specialist on EU home affairs at the Centre for European Reform, said the UK risked going over a cliff edge on aspects of EU police co-operation, including the European arrest warrant, crime-fighting databases and membership of the EU police agency, Europol.
Sur contra Este: la UE reanuda las hostilidades por las cuotas de refugiados
10 May 2018
El Espanol
"El hecho de que haya un aumento de presupuesto para temas de inmigración no va a desbloquear las cuotas. No creo que arrojar dinero al problema vaya a resolver nada. El sistema de cuotas, tal y como lo conocemos, está muerto ahora mismo y va a ser muy difícil desbloquearlo", responde a este periódico Camino Mortera, investigadora experta en temas migratorios del Centre for European Reform.
The battle over Europe's budget
10 May 2018
Prospect
Negotiations on the “Multiannual Financial Framework” are getting underway, but how to make up the Brexit-shaped shortfall?
For the first time Europeans are seriously debating EU defence spending
10 May 2018
Smart Thinking
Britain leaving costs the EU money. Currently, there is no defence line in the EU budget, overall EU defence spending is the sum of all member-state spending.
As a former diplomat to the US, I know how Britain needs to respond to Trump after his Iran deal decision with realism
10 May 2018
The Independent
European leaders have to deal with the president they have, not the one they wish they had.
Europeans scramble to save Iran nuclear deal but face new concerns over US sanctions
09 May 2018
The Washington Post
“The EU can take steps to mitigate the impact of the sanctions,” said Luigi Scazzieri of the London-based Centre for European Reform. “But overall, companies will be scared. They will also prioritize their business with the US.”
Macron hailed as European unifier, but reality remains elusive
09 May 2018
Voice of America
“It’s easier for him to reform France because he’s in charge,” said Charles Grant, director of the London-based Centre for European Reform think tank, or CER, who believes Macron will ultimately succeed in implementing some but not many of his proposed EU changes. “The problem with Europe is he’s not in charge.”
CER podcast: The Customs Union debate
09 May 2018
Sophia Besch asks John Springford and Sam Lowe to lay out the arguments in favour and against a customs union between the UK and the EU after Brexit.
If women ruled: 10 women call for new voices in the European conversation
07 May 2018
Politico
A group of senior female experts based in Brussels got together to brainstorm Europe’s future and came up with radically different solutions. Here are our proposals.
I was a Remainer, but I'm sick of the economic doom and gloom – Brexit is an exciting opportunity to do things differently
06 May 2018
The Telegraph
After all, even after Brexit, Britain will remain “a European liberal democracy, with almost identical security interests to the remaining EU countries”, as Sophia Besch of the Centre for European Reform puts it – so it is odd to treat us as a strategic rival.
A hitchhiker's guide to Galileo and Brexit
04 May 2018
Financial Times
“The debate between the UK and the EU over British participation in the EU’s space programme ‘Galileo’ shows how difficult it will be to disentangle economic and security interests during Brexit negotiations.” (Sophia Besch at the Centre for European Reform)
Wage spiral
03 May 2018
Financial Times
Germany is becoming dangerously Anglo Saxon. John Springford at the Centre for European Reform looks at how the traditional relationship between wage growth and unemployment has decoupled in Germany, mirroring developments in the UK.
A row over data privacy may upset Britain’s security relations with the EU
03 May 2018
The Economist
After Brexit, Britain faces exclusion from the most militarily sensitive encrypted part of Galileo. That reflects high-minded worries over data security, but also low-minded hopes of hoovering up lost British contracts. As Sophia Besch of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, notes, this shows how petty rivalries risk damaging broader co-operation in defence and security. The stakes could hardly be higher.
Macron struts global stage, but is he influential?
03 May 2018
Yahoo News
Analysts are likewise sceptical that pleas from Macron and other European leaders will successfully stave off a trade war, despite a temporary EU reprieve from Trump's new steel and aluminium tariffs. "The things that Macron wants him to do are things that it would be pretty difficult for Trump to accept without losing credibility with his populist base," said John Springford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform.
Parliament Live: Exiting the European Union Committee
02 May 2018
Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska gave evidence to the Exiting the European Union Committee on: The progress of the UK’s negotiations on EU withdrawal (from 9:38 mins).
Parliamentary scrutiny and approval of the Withdrawal Agreement and negotiations on a future relationship
02 May 2018
House of Commons
Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska raised with us the example of the declaration the EU concluded with New Zealand in 2017 ahead of trade negotiations. A document of 14 pages, it mentions numerous areas of co-operation, from global and regional security to movement of people, development policy, fisheries, transport, and people-to-people contact, but it remains very general. She described it as “more an intention of both parties to say, “We share common values, this is the intention we have and these are the goals we want to achieve”,” adding that “it will be more binding when it comes to means than when it comes to results.”
House of Commons International Trade Committee - UK-US Trade Relations Second Report of Session 2017–19
01 May 2018
House of Commons International Trade Committee
Samuel Lowe, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform told us that “the guilty secret” of trade is that FTAs “do not deliver much aggregate growth”. According to Mr Lowe, “[a]nything over 1 per cent is massive in terms of long-run growth, and most trade agreements are little more than rounding errors in terms of your long-run impact”.
Tackling the unemployment devide
01 May 2018
Economica
The Centre for European Reform finds that this alone reduced the German unemployment rate by 1.5 percentage points. If these opportunities are not seized, there is a risk of political instability and economic growth failing to reach its potential.