Press
Italy toughens asylum laws amid surge in migrant arrivals
18 September 2023
Voice of America
The plan is unlikely to have a big effect, said Camino Mortera-Martinez of the Centre for European Reform. “When it comes to substantive points and content of things that the Commission can do — or the European Union even can do — about this problem, there is absolutely nothing new. We see von der Leyen’s 10-point plan that she offered Italy, and we see the same things that we've been seeing for the past 10 years,” Mortera-Martinez told VOA.
Channel 4 News: Keir Starmer said he would boost growth by rewriting the Brexit deal
18 September 2023
"Will Starmer try and go beyond his red lines? The impression I get from talking to people in the Labour leadership is they know they've got to go further ...
Mario Draghi’s back — With a lot of work to do
18 September 2023
Bloomberg
A paper co-authored by Sander Tordoir, economist at the Centre for European Reform, set out earlier this year why Germany needs a new growth model — including more infrastructure spending, higher wages and filling digitalization gaps.
Welcome to Doppelgänger Britain – a world without Brexit
16 September 2023
The New Statesman
The economist John Springford on how he modelled what the UK would look like had it voted Remain.
The EU still needs to build its de-risking toolkit
14 September 2023
Encompass
‘De-risking’ the EU’s economic ties with China took centre stage in this week’s state of the union speech by European Commission President von der Leyen.
Italy mulls quitting China's 'Belt and Road' but fears offending Beijing
14 September 2023
Voice of America
There are also geopolitical reasons for Italy rethinking its membership in China's BRI, said Luigi Scazzieri, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform."There's come to be a certain diplomatic stigma attached to it, partly because the whole of the West is rethinking its relationship with China," Scazzieri told VOA.
CER Podcast: Ukraine's road to EU membership
13 September 2023
Ian Bond and Hennadiy Maksak discuss Ukraine's road to EU membership.
Has the European Central Bank become too powerful?
13 September 2023
The Economist
Officials must combine a monetary-policy justification with adherence to the eu’s fiscal rules and the need for sustainable debt. As such, “ECB lawyers have to be among the most innovative in the world,” says Sander Tordoir of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank.
La «dame de fer» de Bruxelles entre deux destins
13 September 2023
Le Temps
«Son principal atout est son engagement en faveur des principes du marché libre, qui l’a parfois amenée à s’opposer à des intérêts particuliers. Elle a également réussi à convaincre de nombreuses personnes que la Direction générale de la concurrence n’avait pas pour seul objectif d’attaquer les entreprises américaines, mais qu’elle appliquerait la politique de concurrence sans crainte ni faveur, y compris lorsque des entreprises européennes sont visées», analyse Zach Meyers, chercheur en politique de la concurrence au Centre for European Reform.
EU subsidy race is on – and Germany is winning it
12 September 2023
EurActiv
“The problem here is that the relaxed state aid rules benefit countries like Germany that have low public debt and can afford to lavish subsidies,” Zach Meyers, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform (CER), a think-tank, told Euractiv.
One year on, Trussonomics is still inflicting damage
09 September 2023
The Sunday Times
John Springford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, was quick out of the blocks to reveal that on his “doppelganger” calculations, the UK economy was still 5 per cent smaller than it would have been by the second quarter of 2022, compared with 5.5 per cent on his previous calculation.
G20: A chance for Europe to shape the global order
09 September 2023
Financial Times
I caught up this week with Charles Grant, the director of Centre for European Reform, for the first time since I commissioned him to write op-eds for the FT during the eurozone debt crisis. Bear in mind, he notes, that while just about everyone in the EU is in favour of multilateralism, given the war in Ukraine and the focus on EU enlargement it is not top of people’s minds.
Georgia's foreign policy and its alignment with the EU CSFP
07 September 2023
The Georgian Institute of Politics
The risks of strengthening ties with Russia in the midst of its war of aggression against Ukraine should be obvious.
Italy’s recovery funds saga a test for EU fiscal integration
07 September 2023
EurActiv
This could also erode the future will of ‘frugal’ countries to pool resources or issue EU debt, said economist Sander Tordoir from the Centre for European Reform, who prompted the European Commission to be more open about the RRF pitfalls.“The Commission and member-states have neglected to build genuine consensus beforehand on what would constitute big-picture political success for the RRF,” he told EURACTIV, warning of a backlash.
Britain can recover from the self-harm of Brexit. Today’s return to the EU’s Horizon project shows how
07 September 2023
The Guardian
The Centre for European Reform estimated that at the end of 2021, the British economy was 5% smaller than it would have been had Britain not left.
Germany’s economic rut gets deeper
07 September 2023
The Wall Street Journal
“There’s a triple-whammy [facing Germany]: higher energy prices, a global environment that’s not conducive to goods trade and the China shock,” said Sander Tordoir, a senior economist at the Centre for European Reform in Berlin.
Apple and Microsoft seek exemption from EU Digital Markets Act
06 September 2023
Arn
“Microsoft's arguments may hold some weight,” said Zach Meyers, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, who said the company could reasonably argue that a platform with a 3% market share is not an "important gateway" for businesses. He added that while there may be some concern around Microsoft's vast ecosystem and its aggressive promotion of Bing, the search engine’s low market share illustrates how insurmountable Google's lead is, even with Microsoft throwing everything at it.
EU lists ‘gatekeepers’ to be regulated, opens iMessage and Bing investigations
06 September 2023
Computer World
Even if Apple and Microsoft are ultimately successful in their challenges, there would not be an immediate floodgate of arguments from other gatekeepers, as the tech firms would have needed to object to their platforms being regulated before the list was published, said Zach Meyers, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform.
Future is Blue: Unpacking German economic troubles
06 September 2023
Is the German economy again the sick man of Europe, as it was once labelled back in the late 90s? We take a look at the current economic challenges of Germany together with Sander Tordoir, Senior Economist at the Centre for European Reform, and Raymond Torres, Funcas Europe Director.
How big banks won the banking crisis
05 September 2023
CNN
John Springford, deputy director at the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, said: “The revisions are good news. But since 2021 the economy has stagnated — and that followed a period of below-trend growth after the [2016] Brexit referendum. So while the size of the economy is bigger than we thought, Britain still has a growth problem.”