Press

"The danger of social protest is real but more subtle," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think tank. "I don't think it will lead governments to fall, but it is changing the intellectual climate in Europe to make further moves toward market liberalisation less likely, and hence the long-term stability and survival of the euro less likely ... Social protests reflect a shift in the Zeitgeist (mood of the age) that will damage economic efficiency and productivity and lead to slower growth in Europe," Grant said.

"One thing you won't find in Britain is European jingoism, the idea that Europe has all the answers," says Simon Tilford, economist at the Centre for European Reform in London.

Simon Tilford, the chief economist at the CER, thinks similarly [current policy and regime in the eurozone is unsustainable]. Another supporter of the idea of a single currency, Tilford published a scathing critique last week of the current state of the eurozone, warning that it could easily break up. Like Flassbeck, Tilford is concerned about the deflationary bias of policy. "The eurozone can only avoid permanent crisis by convincing investors that growth will be strong enough for the hard-hit members of the currency union to service their debts," he said.

When the laws on free movement were conceived, "it was assumed that this would be about highly qualified, multi-lingual, economically mobile work force moving across borders — not about Roma," said Hugo Brady, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. It is tempting for politicians like Mr Sarkozy, whose fortunes are flagging, to play the immigrant card, but that also risks raising public passions, Mr Brady said, possibly undercutting support for European institutions among a public that is already skeptical about integration.

A 2006 report [The future of European universities] by the Centre for European Reform, encouraged European universities to become more competitive, more entrepreneurial and, although it did not say so explicitly, more American. The authors stated that tuition in Europe is a must, but they also recommended paying faculty on the basis of merit; lobbying aggressively with state and private funding sources, like alumni; and developing alliances with corporate benefactors.

But, as Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform argues, Russian leaders' concept of modernisation is overly statist, particularly given that public institutions function so badly. "An innovative economy needs open markets, venture capital, free thinking entrepreneurs, fast bankruptcy courts and solid protection of intellectual property," she argues. Instead there are "wide-spread monopolies, ubiquitous corruption, stifling state interferences, weak and contradictory laws."

"It is wrong to argue that Germany is the growth engine of the European economy, which is what we have seen argued in recent days," said Simon Tilford, chief economist with the Centre for European Reform.. "It is right to argue that it is a drag." This year's German trade surplus topped $ 77 billion through May, about 60 percent of that occurring within Europe.