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Camino Mortera-Martinez, head of the Brussels office at the Centre for European Reform think tank, said Lord Cameron’s appointment was a surprise, but given what followed, he still compares well. “He started everything off, but his successors were so bad that he is probably perceived as something like one of the few adults in the room,” she said. “And he campaigned for staying in the EU, so I guess that counts for something.”

“The stunning surge in Chinese imports from the Netherlands over the past few months is a result of Beijing’s buying spree of Dutch chip machinery company ASML before the drawbridge gets pulled up,” said Sander Tordoir, a senior economist at the Centre for European Reform.

Chancellor Scholz has an eye on upcoming European elections, scheduled for June next year, says analyst Camino Mortera-Martinez of the Centre for European Reform in Brussels.

“We’ve got some sort of agreement. It does paper over the cracks,” said Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform.
“It took them some time to agree on the eventual formula. They seem to have spent a long time arguing about whether there should be a ‘pause’ for humanitarian purposes, or ‘pauses.’ A lot of people apparently thought that the former sounded a bit too close to a ceasefire, which they didn't want to call for,” Bond said.

Managing both conflicts will be a struggle, said Luigi Scazzieri of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank. “The EU will have to divide its attention and financial resources between Ukraine and Gaza. Ukraine will be overshadowed, and it will be harder for the EU to agree to providing large amounts of macroeconomic and military assistance to Kyiv.”

Du point de vue de l’attractivité de l’UE, cette nouvelle boussole est en tout cas bienvenue, aux yeux de Zach Meyers, chercheur du Centre for European Reform. «En principe, je pense que cela devrait contribuer à rendre l’Europe plus attractive pour les investissements. Pour un temps, l’UE a été capable d’imposer de hauts standards sans compromettre cette attractivité, car elle s’appuyait sur ‘l’effet Bruxelles’» : le fait que de nombreuses entreprises internationales décident de s’aligner sur les standards européens à l’échelle mondiale pour plus de simplicité.