Press

The Centre for European Reform has gained a strong reputation for its coverage of European economic affairs, especially because of the work of Simon Tilford, who has offered consistent clarity on Germany's role in the eurozone crisis.

"The fundamental problem with the eurozone is that what happens at the federal level in the United States still happens at the national level in the eurozone," said Philip Whyte, a senior research fellow at the CER. "Unless they correct that flaw, individual states are going to run into trouble, and when they run into trouble, the markets are going to question how much political appetite there is to keep that country within the eurozone."

Charles Grant, a regular Eurostar traveller and director of the Centre of European Reform, said he had faced delays of more than an hour disembarking, complaining that UK officials were worse than those in any authoritarian regime he had dealt with.  "The UK has a problem with its reputation and image at the moment. I do believe this borders problem – at airports and at St Pancras – is reinforcing the overall impression that we don’t like foreigners ...and that we are shutting ourselves off from the world," he told the Financial Times.

Leaders of the 27 EU countries agreed late last month on a bold plan to pump cash into Europe's troubled banks and help governments deal with their excessive debt and high borrowing costs. But the plan is likely to provide little immediate relief to Europe's youth. What they need is economic growth that produces jobs. "That's the real urgency," says John Springford, research fellow at the CER.

"There's a greater and greater political trend toward an emphasis only on the eurozone," said Hugo Brady, a senior research fellow at the CER, referring to the 17 countries that use the currency.

Jo Johnson, un député conservateur - et frère du maire de Londres - va dans le même sens, dans un récent article pour le CER : "Une UE sans la Grande-Bretagne est désormais évoquée comme une vraie possibilité."

Charles Grant, un expert du Centre for European Reform, estime qu'il y a 70 % de chance qu'un référendum soit organisé après les élections de 2015 et 50 % de chance qu'il se conclue par un « non » à l'Europe. ... "Entre rejoindre la zone de libre-échange américaine (Nafta), devenir la Suisse ou la Norvège, les anti-européens sont divisés et n'ont pas de stratégie crédible pour le pays ", note Charles Grant.

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said that given this situation the Swiss bilateral model is probably more attractive for British eurosceptics than the Norwegian one. But he added that this model comes with its own problems: "Being out of the trade block could hurt UK manufacturers such as the car industry if the right exemptions cannot be negotiated."