Centre for European Reform

“This is not something the EU really wants to do, but political realities have compelled the Commission to put it forward,” Aslak Berg, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, told The Parliament....To Berg of the Centre for European Reform, the new regime is nonetheless "borderline." He added: “They’re stretching the letter of WTO law to the breaking point.”

Along with the movement of goods and people, services – Britain’s biggest export category – are severely restricted by the time limit. Take Rolls-Royce: it doesn’t just sell engines, but services planes, too, sending engineers back and forth across the English Channel all the time, says John Springford of the Centre for European Reform. He lists consultants and accountants going back and forth to clients in the Schengen area, as well as UK events companies transporting performers and orchestras to venues around Europe. He says they are losing out massively to EU operators. Nothing can bring back lost trade except rejoining the customs union and the single market, he adds.

Sander Tordoir, an economist at the Centre for European Reform, a think tank, says a big reason was that China's export boom back then was in low-end manufactured products like textiles, toys, consumer electronics, and furniture, "not in the industries that are the hallmark of the German economy, namely autos, chemicals, and machines."

Whether or not Europe is able to provide a big load of cash, it needs to be much more robust in its support of Ukraine, says Ian Bond in this trenchantly argued piece for the Centre for European Reform. Bond says European leaders need to face up to the facts: Trump shows deference to Putin and will not pressure him to end the war; Putin is determined to fight on and will never accept an effective security guarantee for Ukraine; and the US is reluctant to help the Europeans provide one.