Press
Theresa May survives leadership challenge, but Brexit plan is still in peril
12 December 2018
The New York Times
John Springford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based research institute, said that the size of the vote against her “is an even clearer signal that she won’t be able to get her deal through Parliament, and makes it even more likely that when she puts the deal to the vote she will lose that.”
IFRI: Transatlantic relations in the age of 'America First'
12 December 2018
Sophia Besch, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform discusses transatlantic relations in the age of 'America First' - how American foreign policy will develop, what to make of European efforts to reach strategic autonomy, and how Germany's defence policy is changing.
CER podcast: CER researchers review the year 2018
12 December 2018
Charles Grant, John Springford and Ian Bond review the political themes and events that shaped 2018, and take a look at some of the predictions they made last year.
Brexit: Jeremy Corbyn opens debate criticising government for postponing key vote – Politics live
11 December 2018
The Guardian
On the subject of a referendum, Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, now sees that as more likely than any of the other possible resolutions to the Brexit crisis. "My take on Brexit probabilities. UK leaves with no deal, 15% chance. Parliament finally passes May's deal, slightly modified with EU 'assurances', 20%. Or it passes the deal with new political declaration sketching Norway, 20%. General election, 15%. Referendum, 30%."
CNBC: Changing Theresa May’s Brexit deal pointless, political analyst says
11 December 2018
John Springford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, discusses the next steps for Theresa May after she cancelled the parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal.
The Brexit vote was delayed by Theresa May. What might happen next?
11 December 2018
NBC News
"She's almost certain to face the challenge," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank. "The only consequence of postponing of her Brexit vote is to weaken May's authority several notches further than it already has been."
May delays Brexit deal vote but EU warns no renegotiation
11 December 2018
Daily Monitor
Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform (CER) suggested May would only secure "very minor changes to her deal". "The substance of the Irish backstop will be unaltered. So I very much doubt that parliament will vote for the deal, when it has the chance to do so," he said.
Manic Monday: Britain plunges deeper into Brexit crisis
11 December 2018
Aljazeera
Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, said "It would be naive to think that the other 27 EU member states would be open" to substantial changes to the backstop and wider exit plan after months of fractious back-and-forth negotiations.
Brexit will cut thousands of jobs and forfeit billions in tax
10 December 2018
The Financial Times
Recent analysis by Sam Lowe of the Centre for European Reform suggests that under the provisions of a free trade agreement between Britain and the EU, UK exports of insurance and pension services will be 19 per cent lower and of other financial services 59 per cent lower. Functions and assets are already moving and the jobs will follow.
How much has Brexit cost so far? The UK has lost a lot of cash since the referendum
10 December 2018
The Metro
In September, Centre for European Reform research claimed that Brexit was costing the UK economy an enormous £500 million a week. The research suggested that the UK economy was 2.5% smaller at that point and public finances were taking the £26 billion a year hit.
Brexit: What happens next?
10 December 2018
Politico
Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform think tank said he thinks the upper limit of any extension could be “mid-May” because of the upcoming European Parliament election, but in extremis the EU could be flexible. “Britain’s seats in the European Parliament have already been reallocated and it would be legally complicated to keep the U.K. in the EU beyond the elections,” Grant wrote in a blog for the CER. “But if the EU really wanted to prolong British membership by several months, there could be ways around the European Parliament problem; for example, the U.K. could appoint MPs as MEPs on an interim basis.”
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer’s election offers no cause for Macron and the EU to celebrate
10 December 2018
Euronews
The election of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as the new leader of the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party suggests there will not be any immediate shift in Germany’s lukewarm approach to French proposals for eurozone reform if she also succeeds Angela Merkel as Chancellor.
Climbdowns and compromises on long road to a botched Brexit
09 December 2018
The Financial Times
“To her credit, she realised she needed to pivot away from [the] Lancaster House [speech],” said John Springford of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank. “She recognised that if she didn’t compromise, Britain would end up with hard borders that would damage UK manufacturing industry and the Irish peace process.”
Burdened with Brexit, Prime Minister Theresa May is on the brink
09 December 2018
Aljazeera
"I think there is this kind of empathy for Theresa May," said Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. "There is this understanding that she has had this very difficult job, being pressed from both within her party and across the political spectrum. "Some European leaders have recognised her efforts to bring the deal home."
It's time to dethrone the Bank of England's fractious grandees
08 December 2018
The Telegraph
This is odd, because as the Centre for European Reform’s Sam Lowe points out in a new analysis, the much bigger threat to trade from Brexit is to Britain’s services sector, accounting for nearly a half of all UK exports, of which around 40pc go to the rest of the EU.
Financial services exports to EU face 59% fall, warns think-tank
07 December 2018
The Financial Times
Britain’s exports of financial services to the EU could fall by almost 60 per cent as a result of leaving the single market, marking a “sea change” in the services sector that drives the UK economy, according to new research by the Centre for European Reform.The think-tank sought to assess the impact of new trading barriers on the key areas of services where Britain currently has a comparative advantage — finance, insurance, law and accountancy.
It’s about services, stupid
07 December 2018
The Financial Times
The problem with this, as Sam Lowe of the Centre for European Reform points out in a timely paper, is that said trade agreements tend not to go far beyond WTO commitments in any case.
The great Brexit breakdown
07 December 2018
The Wall Street Journal
The backstop “means all kinds of things to different people,” says Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank. “The right hates it because it leaves open the possibility of being locked in a customs union. The left hates it because it leaves Britain outside the EU but subject to the rules of the EU and without a voice or a vote.”
AKK's victory will allow Merkel a dignified exit - but little more than that
07 December 2018
The Telegraph
The result does not guarantee her survival, but as Christian Odendahl of the Centre for European Reform in Berlin observes, it increases the chances of Mrs Merkel making a dignified exit.
BBC Radio 4 - Today programme: Emergency brake to limit free movement
07 December 2018
Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform (from 2:13), speaks to the Today programme about the emergency brake to limit free movement.