Press

Tinfoil helmet Brexiteering

26 April 2023
The New European
Thankfully, we did not have the hardest Brexit possible, so that figure (the equivalent would be £50bn a year) came down a bit – which makes the £40bn annually that John Springford, deputy director at the Centre for European Reform, calculates is the ongoing Brexit deficit feel about right.

Europa lockert starre Schuldenregeln

26 April 2023
Süddeutsche Zeitung
"Das kam die Eurozone teuer zu stehen", sagt der Ökonom Sander Tordoir vom Berliner Centre for European Reform.

Bruxelles bataille pour assouplir le Pacte de stabilité

26 April 2023
Le Parisien
«Ces concessions envers les frugaux, emmenés par l’Allemagne, vont se heurter à une vive opposition non seulement à Paris, mais aussi à Rome et à Madrid par exemple, pose Sander Tordoir, du Centre for European Reform. Ces pays ont été trop passifs ces dernières semaines, en laissant la Commission esseulée face aux récriminations de Berlin. Ils vont désormais devoir trouver un moyen de contre-attaquer à la table des ministres des Finances», estime cet économiste.

EU targets Google, Facebook, Twitter and other 'very large' tech companies with stricter rules

25 April 2023
Euronews
Zach Meyers, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, described the list as "not especially surprising.""It is notable that, as expected, very few European companies will face the toughest regulation under the DSA - with a few exceptions such as Booking.com," he told Euronews. 

UK MPs to debate e-petition’s call for public Brexit inquiry

24 April 2023
EurActiv
There were many promises made in the run-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum. For example, the public was told that the £350 million the UK was sending to the EU every week could fund the NHS instead. In December, the Centre for European Reform said that Brexit reduced Britain’s GDP by 5.5% by the second quarter of 2022 which, in turn, has seen a squeeze on public services, including the NHS.

Europe set to curb Ukrainian grain deals after farmers protest

21 April 2023
Voice of America
The dispute has taken many by surprise, said Ian Bond of the Centre for European Reform, an analyst group.“In the case of Poland, what’s so strange is that this is so much at odds with the assistance that Poland has given Ukraine in other ways,” Bond told VOA.

The EU's elusive China policy

Camino Mortera-Martinez
21 April 2023
El Pais
Much like the European Union, I never thought I was going to have to think so much about China.

Give teeth to fiscal rules reform

18 April 2023
Politico
Researchers Sander Tordoir, Jasper van Dijk and Vinzenz Ziesemer have some advice for the Commission, which is fine tuning its proposed reform of EU government spending rules, to make sure they're enforced. Here's their full paper for the Centre for European Reform, out Monday.

What the 2023 Turkish general election could mean for EU-Turkey relations

18 April 2023
LSE blog
Turkey is one of the EU’s largest and most strategically important neighbours, a NATO member and a candidate for EU membership. Its presidential and parliamentary elections, scheduled for 14 May, will determine whether President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan remains in power and in control of Turkey’s relations with Europe.

Euronews: Bruselas, ¿te quiero?: La Unión Europea profundiza su división sobre China

Camino Mortera-Martinez
15 April 2023
La redacción de Euronews en Bruselas les presenta el último episodio de nuestro programa de debate y análisis de la actualidad europea.

AB'de Türkiye'deki seçimlere ilişkin gergin bekleyiş

15 April 2023
Deutsche Welle
AB’de Türkiye seçimleriyle ilgili gergin bekleyişi, olası senaryolara hazırlıkları DW Türkçe’ye anlatan CER uzmanı Luigi Scazzieri, “Kılıçdaroğlu'nun galibiyeti ilişkilerin güçlenmesinin yolunu açar” dedi.

The total eclipse of Margrethe Vestager

13 April 2023
Politico
“Any chance of a prestigious international role might be stymied were former US President Donald Trump or a like-minded candidate to seize the White House next year, said Zach Meyers, a competition policy fellow at the Centre for European Reform. “There’s a lot of bad blood between Vestager and Trump, so she may be unable to secure American support if the Republicans win.”

Brexit will cost UK workers about £1,300 in lost income each year, say experts

12 April 2023
Evening Standard
John Springford, deputy director at the Centre for European Reform, told the Standard: “Britain’s productivity determines how much money people are paid. So a full-time worker with average earnings will be about £1,300 worse off a year as a result of Brexit.

CER podcast: Berlin versus Brussels: The politics of EU fiscal rules

12 April 2023
In this week's episode of the CER podcast Sander Tordoir discusses the EU's fiscal rules.

German debt rules proposal fuels new austerity fear

11 April 2023
EurActiv
“Everyone is jumping on [the German proposal] as if the 1 per cent is sort of a red line,” Sander Tordoir of the Centre for European Reform told Euractiv. “But if you read the paper, there’s a lot of ‘could’ and ‘could for example be’,” he said, adding that he thinks this language is chosen “explicitly and purposefully, signalling openness to discuss”.

„Konstruktiv“ oder „katastrophal“: Lindners Reformplan für EU-Schuldenregeln stößt auf geteiltes Echo

10 April 2023
Handelsblatt
“Andere Ökonomen bewerten die Vorschläge der Bundesregierung positiver. Sander Tordoir vom Centre for European Reform sieht „ein konstruktives Angebot“, das nach seiner Einschätzung strenger daherkommt, als es eigentlich ist.”  

EU Commission to investigate testbed Orange-MasMovil merger

04 April 2023
EurActiv
“If the merger is allowed to proceed, it could trigger a string of similar mobile mergers across Europe. That means there is a lot of pressure: the Commission may decide that the merger would help support faster 5G and fibre rollout in Spain. But if they get it wrong, then only the firms’ shareholders will win,” Zach Meyers, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, told EURACTIV.
For Meyers, the odds might be set against the merger, as raising prices might be particularly unpopular during raging inflation. 

If Sunak wants to put Britain back on track, he must break with the Brexiteers

01 April 2023
The New European
But whereas other economies have largely recovered from the pandemic, the UK continues to languish because Brexit keeps on inflicting its damage. The Centre for European Reform calculates that by June, it will have cost Britain a lost £40 billion in taxes.

Windsor Framework: Plan to scrap EU laws could undermine NI deal, says report

Anton Spisak
01 April 2023
BBC News
Plans to scrap thousands of EU-era laws copied over to UK law after Brexit could undermine the Windsor Framework, a think tank has warned. The Centre for European Reform (CER) said that would lead to "unmanaged divergence" between Britain and the EU.It says this in turn would "deepen the regulatory gulf between Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

Sunak rejects report that plan to scrap thousands of EU laws will undermine Brexit deal

Anton Spisak
31 March 2023
The Daily Express
Rishi Sunak has rubbished the claim that the Government's plan to scrap thousands of EU laws would undermine the Windsor Framework. The Retained EU Law Bill will see thousands of laws inherited from the Europen Union expire automatically at the end of 2023. But the Centre for European Reform (CER) said the plans would lead to "unmanaged divergence" between Britain and the EU.