The Guardian, Newsblog, 30 December 2005
Paying the piper
"Many Russians fear that the Ukrainian-Russian border would turn into a new 'iron curtain' if Ukraine joined the EU and that bilateral trade would be disrupted," says Dmitri Trenin, in a recent essay for the Centre for European Reform. ...As Mr Trenin argues: "Russia needs to abandon the last remnants of imperialist thinking, be it spheres-of-influence fantasies or the use of subsidised energy supplies for political leverage." But such an approach will be difficult with parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia looming, in 2007 and 2008 respectively. "If Putin is seen as 'too soft' in his foreign policy, populists will seek to exploit nationalist sentiment by accusing him of having 'lost' Ukraine," Mr Trenin says.

Bloomberg News, 29 December 2005
EU May Slow Entry Bids of Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey
"It's possible Bulgarian and Romanian accession will be put off,'' Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the London-based Centre for European Reform, said by telephone on Dec. 22. "The reason would be not enough progress in fighting corruption.''

Reuters, 27 December 2005
Democracy and Iran tension to test Russia's G8 lead
Putin may thus find himself in the awkward position of having to congratulate Lukashenko on an election victory denounced by his G8 partners. "Belarus looks like being a bit of a train crash," said Katinka Barysch of the London-based Centre for European Reform.

Reuters, 22 December 2005
Germany's Merkel shows she's ready for big stage
"What we saw in Brussels was a change in German style as well as substance," said Charles Grant director of the London-based Centre for European Reform. "Because of the crucial role Merkel played there, she will be perceived as a real leader at home and that can only help her domestic agenda."

The Independent, 21 December 2005
EU Analysis: UK presidency was forced on to the defensive after a flying start
Charles Grant director of the Centre for European Reform, argues that, while the presidency was successful overall, "some east European diplomats were shocked, not just by the brutal proposed cuts, but by what they saw as the arrogant style of the presidency".

The Washington Times, 18 December 2005
Europeans move against terrorists; London, Madrid bombings fuel nations' efforts
EU counter-terrorism - According to a recent report from the Centre for European Reform (CER) in London, European nations agree in principle on the need for counter-terrorism cooperation at the EU level but are reluctant to give the European Union the powers and resources necessary to be truly effective in this area. Daniel Keohane, senior research fellow at the CER, said this is "because security policy - especially when it concerns protecting citizens - goes to the core of national sovereignty, and governments are reluctant to give the EU powers that could interfere with their existing laws and national-security practices." Moreover, as Mr. Keohane noted in "The EU and Counter-Terrorism," greater coordination of EU anti-terrorism policy is limited by the fact that the European Union is not a national government with prosecutorial or intelligence capabilities. In addition, counterterrorism is not a well-defined EU policy. As Mr. Keohane explained, it is difficult for national governments to coordinate all the agencies involved in their own counterterror policies, and coordinating the efforts of 25 governments is vastly more difficult. ...Mr. Keohane of the CER said Mr. de Vries "has few powers, a small budget and no right to propose EU-level legislation in his area; nor can he call meetings of national justice or foreign ministers to set the anti-terrorism agenda." Consequently, said Mr. Keohane, the counterterrorism co-ordinator is limited primarily to monitoring progress on the anti-terrorism action plan and encouraging the many entities of the European Union to work more closely with each other to co-ordinate counterterrorism policies.

Reuters, 17 December 2005
EU budget deal may further Blair's ambitions
"In terms of reforming the budget, it clearly didn't happen. He has failed to do that ... because other countries didn't want to," said Katinka Barysch, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform think-tank.

International Herald Tribune, 16 December 2005
EU leaders carry competing visions of Europe into crucial meeting
Hugo Brady, research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a London-based research institute, said an unsuccessful summit meeting risked creating a more permanent rift between Britain and the other EU members, stalling vital economic reforms. "Relations between Britain and the rest of the bloc could reach an all-time low, while EU business could slow to a considerable standstill," he said.

The Times, 16 December 2005
Awkward Poland makes alliance with the French
Poland "is an awkward customer and was always going to be", said Alasdair Murray, of the Centre for European Reform, the London-based pro-European think-tank. He attributes some of that awkwardness to the "populist conservative trend in its politics, which has been there since democracy"...Poland also has "complicated views on the EU itself", Murray adds.

Bloomberg, 16 December 2005
Turkey's EU Entry Gets `Litmus Test' as Trial of Writer Begins
"If they really end up putting Pamuk in jail then you might see the EU suspending membership negotiations,'' said Katinka Barysch of the London-based Centre for European Reform, in a telephone interview Dec. 9. "I can't think of anything quite as drastic as locking people up for criticizing the state.''

The Guardian, 15 December 2005
Look east for the victims of infighting
"Enlargement has been the union's most successful foreign policy tool and the EU should not give it up," the London-based Centre for European Reform and France's Institut Montaigne said recently. "However, the EU needs to take into account people's concerns ... by restating that it will only admit European countries and only if further enlargement does not threaten its cohesion." That sounded ominous for Turkey.

Christian Science Monitor, 15 December 2005
Europe's farms vs. free trade
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, there is a fear that unless the WTO can reach a satisfactory deal, perhaps at a specially convened meeting next spring, its most powerful members might lose faith in multilateral trade negotiations altogether and revert to bilateral and regional agreements. If so, the losers would be the developing countries, says Aurore Wanlin. "The least developed countries with nothing to offer would not be invited to do any deals, and the emerging nations would be much more vulnerable dealing directly with superpowers."

Malaysia Star, 14 December 2005
Is Germany's Merkel the key to EU summit success?
"I think Merkel can seize this opportunity," said Hugo Brady, a research fellow at Centre for European Reform (CER) in London. "She is the key personality at this summit."

Bloomberg, 14 December 2005
Mandelson may be scapegoat for WTO's lack of progress
The EU "put its cards on the table too fast,'' said Aurore Wanlin, a research fellow at the London-based Centre for European Reform. Mandelson "has a difficult job because it is a difficult trade round,'' Wanlin said. "It's more difficult for him because he's a new commissioner coming at a critical time in the negotiations without having the background.''

Gulf Times [Qatar], 13 December 2005
Crisis-hobbled EU fears new blow over budget
The budget standoff is not yet an all-out crisis: Officials note that in the bloc's last long-term budget negotiations a deal was only struck in the spring before the round began – a scenario which, if repeated, would leave the door open until next March. "For the EU it wouldn't be a disaster. You could still have another go in early 2006," Katinka Bayrisch of the Centre for European Reform in London said. But she added: "It would be a blow for the British presidency," noting that: "Budget negotiations won't get any easier."

EurActiv, 12 December 2005
CER: Failure of Doha talks would undermine WTO's credibility
The collapse of the Doha round would also call into question the future of the WTO itself, writes Aurore Wanlin in a policy brief for the think tank the Centre for European Reform. The organisation is still young and in need of further institutional reform. Developed countries criticise the WTO heavily for not taking into account the economic importance of its member states. NGOs and developing countries also accuse it of promoting economic liberalisation at the expense of development, social and environmental goals. Doha is the WTO's first round of negotiations. Their success would strengthen the position of Pascal Lamy, director-general, and make internal reform easier. Doha's failure would weaken the organisation and boost those who wish to undermine multilateral trade. Read full article

Bloomberg, 9 December 2005
WTO Hasn't Made Enough Progress for Summit, EU Says
Poor farmers in countries such as Mozambique, Ethiopia and Jamaica have an interest in seeing rich nation subsidies trimmed because they encourage overproduction of goods that are then exported to developing markets at prices below the cost of production, aid agency Oxfam says. "The problem is that the European and American offers on agriculture were interesting for Brazil'' but "not at all interesting to very poor developing countries'' that already have preferential access to markets that, if opened to Brazil, would expose them to more competition, said Aurore Wanlin, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London.

The Washington Post, 8 December 2005
EU Leaders and Public Differ on Pullout in Iraq - Power Structure Supports US Presence Despite Widespread Calls for Withdrawal
"I think most Europeans are against the war in Iraq and feel that the US is part of the problem now and is causing more damage by staying and should just admit it got things wrong and leave," said Daniel Keohane, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London. "But when you talk to leaders, it's more maintenance," he said, explaining that to leaders who feel Iraqi forces are not ready to control the country, "it makes sense for the U.S. to stay there and finish the job."

International Herald Tribune, 8 December 2005
UK acts to resolve fight on EU work rules
"It is a proxy battle for a more flexible employment model versus what the French like to call a social model for Europe," said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, a research group in London.

Bloomberg, 8 December 2005
UK Offers Work Safeguards to End Standoff With France, Sweden
The opposing camps have grappled for more than a year and a half over a proposal to forge more consistent employment rules and rein in the use of waivers, with which a third of British workers sign away their right to the EU limits. "It is a proxy battle for a more flexible employment model versus what the French like to call a social model for Europe,'' said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, a policy research group in London.

The Washington Post, 7 December 2005
Did Rice say US erred in detaining German?
Daniel Keohane, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London, said "she [Rice] seems to be implying that Europeans were well aware of who's going where in their airspace and in their territory." He suggested European governments "probably would prefer to brush this under the carpet."

AP World Stream, 7 December 2005
Russia ask EU to help mediate in Ukraine gas price dispute
Since the collapse of Soviet Union, the EU has been at pains to improve ties with Moscow. In the 1990s, Russia "tended to underestimate the impact of the EU's eastward enlargement," regarding it as a lesser evil than NATO's reach into Eastern Europe, Dmitri Trenin, deputy director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, wrote in a recent report for the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank.

Zaman [Turkey], 6 December 2005
Proposal to Enjoy the Word Cosmopolite
The international relationship expert and one of the most cosmopolite voices in the Europe, British analyst-intellectual Mark Leonard, has disclosed in the think-tank meeting the 21st century will be the future of Europe; henceforth, Turkey should be definitely involved in the frame. Leonard regards the European project as "working jointly today so as to avoid errors of the past". In his books and speeches, Leonard points at a Europe constituting an independent alternative in terms of policy, philosophy, economy and culture for the nation-states regarding their differences not as a problem but as a richness and rising on the aggressive foreign and internal policies, and where the heroic uttering is removed and the potent willpower is rasped.

Assyrian International News Agency, 2 December 2005
The European Union's Turkish Dilemma
The Turks, for their part, must think in terms of being co-responsible for internal EU developments. As Katinka Barysch at the Centre for European Reform suggests, Turkey must present itself as a "normal" European country. If Turkey is to join the EU, the traditional take-it-or-leave-it accession method must be modified as both sides share a willingness to work together on easing the other's political problems. This dialogue would be greatly strengthened by a major increase of mutual study-trips and conferences by people from all walks of life.

Reuters, 2 December 2005
UK's Blair walks political tightrope on EU budget
Blair may now offer to give up more of those funds or agree a mechanism by which London pays more towards enlargement. He could then claim he had defended the rebate on the CAP. "The whole thing is so incredibly complicated that they are going to put a spin on it," said Katinka Barysch, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform think-tank. "I'm quite sure the government will come up with some mechanism that makes this sound acceptable in Britain."

The New York Times, 1 December 2005
Britain, the continent and the issue of foreign ownership
Britons "don't expect the state to be the first to fix it," whatever the problem, said Katinka Barysch, economist at the Centre for European Reform, which is based in London. "They have less confidence in the state managing things." Underlying the differences, many in Continental Europe see the takeover culture of Britain and the United States as, quite simply, a threat to jobs - even though the statistics show that the traditional social model of France and Germany has not been able to generate work for millions of Europeans. "The perception is that foreign investment is not good for jobs," Ms. Barysch said.

United Press International, 24 November 2005
Paris moves cautiously on reforms
"The climate in France is quite explosive, and the government is very cautious about what it's going to do because it doesn't want the situation to run out of control," said Aurore Wanlin, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform, in London. "There was a kind of peace for some time, but now its running out and the French are holding the government responsible for what's going on, and expecting it to do much more to improve the situation." ..."There is very strong resistance in France to anything that will make the economy more liberal," said Wanlin, of the Centre for European Reform. "French are already very suspicious of the market." As a result - and even without the specter of another nationwide strike in the near future - the government is unlikely to rock the status quo in the coming months, she and others believe. "I would expect the government will continue on its path - which is to implement very small reforms in an incremental way," Wanlin said, "and not do any of these radical reforms that France really needs, for fear they will backlash before the elections."

Reuters, 23 November 2005
Blair seeks allies to end EU budget deadlock
Merkel's first foreign trip was to Paris and the coalition agreement that brought her to office protects farm spending in the Common Agricultural Policy under a 2002 Franco-German pact. "She won't want to antagonise the French early on by touching the CAP deal," said Katinka Barysch, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform think-tank. Analysts do expect Merkel, however, to back publicly Blair's general vision of a future-looking EU budget with more spent on innovation and technology. She may also be more amenable to committing to future CAP reform several years down the line. "I don't think she'll cling so closely to Chirac as (former Chancellor Gerhard) Schroeder did," added Barysch. "This could set the scene for a budget that is a bit more reformist."

United Press International, 19 November 2005
Integration woes a European phenomenon
"The UK has been quite a successful model - although there was a particular outcry here and sense of shock that the terrorists of July 7 [bombing attacks in London] were British born," said Hugo Brady, an analyst a the Centre for European Reform in London. "But it's generally recognized that the UK has been quite good at promoting an open society where the immigrants integrate quickly."

European Voice, 17 November 2005
Spain steps up military ties with France
France already has similar alliances with Germany and the UK, but an alliance with Spain offers both nations the chance to discuss more Mediterranean-focused issues. The council will include the government leaders and foreign and defence ministers. "It shows the fact that Spain wants to be seen as a bigger player in defence and also in the EU in general," said Daniel Keohane, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London. "Spain is realising it's not as effective as it should be. Spain is quite an effective foreign policy player but not so in defence, especially not for a country with a gross domestic product like France or the UK." Still, Keohane pointed out that the Franco-Spanish defence alliance should not expect to be as prominent as the Anglo-French summits because the UK and France provide most of the EU's military funding and manpower for peacekeeping missions. "But that's not to say it can't be important in other ways, partly because it's part of the bigger
picture of European countries having greater integration of their ministry ideas," Keohane added.

The Observer, 13 November 2005
A dismal science, but enlighten up
What is happiness without a drink? It was a Friday evening, after a reasonably hard week's work. I was at Ditchley Park in the heart of rural Oxfordshire, for what the Centre for European Reform described as a 'high-level conference on the Future of the European economy'. We had already had a 'plenary session', during which every known macro and micro economic problem affecting the future of the European economy had been given an airing, then it was 'drinks before dinner'. Full article

The Age [Australia], 12 November 2005
Cousins find little egalite in France
The result is a society of insiders and outsiders, says French woman Aurore Wanlin, a research fellow at London's Centre for European Reform. She thinks, for example, that France effectively chooses to accept high unemployment in order to protect those with jobs: since the country's rigid job protection laws make it hard for employers to fire, they are also loath to hire.

Voice of America, 11 November 2005
Europe's Fears Increase Over Immigrant Unrest
Hugo Brady is an immigration expert at the Centre for European Reform, in London. Like their integration policies, he says, the problems European countries face in assimilating foreigners are different as well. "While there may be regional trends within the EU, there's not one common problem regarding the integration of immigrants. The Euro-Med area - like Spain, south of France, Greece - have their own particular problems of immigration for areas such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya," said Mr. Brady.

EurActiv.com, 11 November 2005
WTO talks: Director General calls for new "negotiating spirit"
"From a negotiating point of view, the EU suffers from a problem of timing. Its negotiating partners take the CAP reforms it did in 2003 for granted and are therefore asking for more," said Aurore Wanlin, a reseacher at the think-tank the Centre for European Reform to EurActiv.

International Herald Tribune, 10 November 2005
In EU reshuffle, woman will head civil service
Barroso's new team appeared to be less integrationist and directed more toward liberal economic change than in the past, analysts said. "This is a symbolic break with the Delors era," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in London.

The Telegraph, 10 November 2005
Thatcherites gaining ground in Brussels
Charles Grant, from the Centre for European Reform, said the Commission was now the EU's engine of free-market change, though it has been stymied by governments and Euro-MPs. "British eurosceptics have trouble facing up to the fact that the Commission is not the enemy," said Mr Grant. "The reality is that the rest of Europe now sees it as a liberal institution, which is why the French hate it so much," he said.

The Guardian, 9 November 2005
Europe faces 'fear of all things foreign'
But problems of discrimination, youth unemployment - half of the detained French rioters are under 18 - racial prejudice, religious intolerance, and xenophobia induced by fear of terrorism and globalisation are entrenched in most European countries, said Aurore Wanlin of the Centre for European Reform. And they have potential to cause more explosions. "There is a debate in every society about how to integrate minorities and migrants, especially unskilled workers at times of economic difficulty," Ms Wanlin said. "But they don't agree what to do so this debate is usually very quiet. There is a lack of visibility about the problem - until there's a crunch like in France and suddenly it cannot be avoided. So you cannot say it will not happen somewhere else. It will, although probably in a different form." ...Europe's failure to agree on how to deal with its principal minorities, or even how to address them, extends to the EU itself, Ms Wanlin said. "The EC has been trying to develop guidelines on integration but the issues are so sensitive that it has been difficult to find common ground." And while Europe's governments fumble, the rise of far-right political parties represented another trend that could trigger trouble, she said. "The advance of the extreme right is an expression of a degree of racism in Europe but more deeply ... social malaise - fear of anything foreign."

Financial Times, 9 November 2005
Barroso to promote reformers in reshuffle
Charles Grant, who chronicled Delors in his book 'Inside the house that Jacques built', said: "The overall trend over the last 10 years has been for the Commission to become increasingly liberal, and this reshuffle will reinforce that. Mr Lamoureux's departure is very symbolic. He has been one of the chief federalists and thinkers inside the Commission in the last 15 years".

Voice of America, 4 November 2005
Governments Debate What to do About Iran's Nuclear Program
Charles Grant, Director of the Centre for European Reform in London, and Philip Gordon of Brookings Institution, both say diplomacy - not military action - is the answer. "I think there's no alternative but to keep going with diplomatic strategy. I don't think a military action of any sort would make things better," says Mr. Grant.

Reuters, 4 November 2005
China's Hu to tell Europe arms ban should go
But with booming Chinese exports to Europe, trade threatens to become increasingly contentious for London and Berlin. "At the policy level, China and India are the big issues," said Katinka Barysch, an analyst of Chinese-European relations at the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank in London. ..."Americans seem to talk of nothing but the China threat, but people in Europe are not really fully aware how China is reshaping the international division of labour," said Barysch. "People here are more worried about Eastern Europe."

Le Monde, 3 November 2005
Trois idées pour une relance, par Thomas Ferenczi
Deux de ces "think tanks", l'Institut Montaigne, à Paris, et le Centre pour la réforme européenne (Centre for European Reform), à Londres, ont uni leurs efforts pour "mettre sur la table des propositions concrètes". "Dans ce climat de confusion, il est tentant d'en appeler au pragmatisme et de préconiser des avancées progressives, écrivent-ils. L'UE, c'est notre opinion, doit se concentrer sur des domaines dans lesquels des progrès réels sont possibles." ...Le document de l'Institut Montaigne et du Centre pour la réforme européenne suggère que l'Union utilise une partie de son budget "pour transformer une demi-douzaine d'universités en centres d'excellence", en retenant celles qui ont "u n département de recherche réputé" et "des liens solides avec le monde de l'entreprise". ...Les deux "think tanks" estiment que "l'Europe devrait figurer en première ligne de la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique et impulser l'élaboration d'un accord post-Kyoto".

United Press International, 3 November 2005
Time for a clear Iran policy
Sanctions, if applied, must be cautious and selective. "What sticks should we use?" says Charles Grant, who heads the Centre for European reform, a London-based think tank "Most people in Europe believe that economic sanctions don't work." Grant advocates carefully targeted sanctions, such as restricting foreign travel for Iranian officials. Blanket measures affecting the entire population could reinforce Iranian nationalism and lead to greater intransigence, he says, citing Burma, Cuba and Iraq. Grant believes the United States and Europe can draw on their more productive use of limited sanctions against Serbia and South Africa to pressure the Iranian regime.

La Tribune [France], 3 November 2005
La Grande-Bretagne n'est pas faite pour les subventions de Bruxelles
"Elle n'est pas adaptée au budget européen, et c'est pour ça que le rabais est justifié", explique Katinka Barysch, économiste au Centre for European Reforms. ... "Les avantages bénéficient à tous les membres de l'Union européenne, rétorque Katinka Barysch. Quand il s'agit d'argent, les membres ont tendance à faire preuve d'une certaine étroitesse d'esprit."

The New York Times, 1 November 2005
Open arms for foreign buyers on one side of Channel
Britons "don't expect the state to be the first to fix it," whatever the problem, said Katinka Barysch of the London-based Centre for European Reform. "They have less confidence in the state managing things." Underlying the differences, many in Continental Europe see the takeover culture of Britain and the United States as, quite simply, a threat to jobs - even though statistics show that the traditional social model of France and Germany has been incapable of generating work for millions of Europeans. "The perception is that foreign investment is not good for jobs," Barysch said.

Turkish Daily News, 30 October 2005
Blair targets critics of 'non-event' British EU presidency
"The best thing that can come out of this summit is a family photo of smiling leaders," said Katinka Barysh of the Centre for European Reform think-tank in London.

The Guardian, 27 October 2005
EU summit: Criticism: 'If you call for debate on Europe's future you must follow that up'
Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, said: "The criticism is understandable and partly justified. Just after the speech you had the terrible bombings in London which obviously diverted the government. But if you ask for a debate on the future of Europe you need to follow that up." But Mr Grant said presidencies could only be judged in the round: "If there is a deal on the budget - after the start of accession talks with Turkey - it will be seen as successful. If there is no deal on the budget it will be seen as unsuccessful."

International Herald Tribune, 27 October 2005
Blair says EU must modernize or lose out
Analysts said Blair was trying to show humility at a time when Europe's ideological rifts are widening. "He is trying to lower expectations ahead of the summit," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank.

AP Worldstream, 27 October 2004
Blair hosts one-day summit aiming to end EU's sense of drift
"The EU has lost its sense of purpose, and with that, its popularity," the London-based Centre for European Reform and the Institut Montaigne in Paris said in a joint report issued Wednesday. "The Union has helped to bring peace across the continent and wealth for most of its inhabitants. But citizens are hardly aware of these benefits."

The Guardian, 27 October 2005
Can Hampton Court be Europe's Great House of Easement?
In the spirit of Franco-British detente, and general, all-round easement, let me suggest that a large lump of this money should go to an all-European research centre based in France. For France also has one of the perfect sites for such a centre: the magnificent modern building, and top-notch office facilities, of the European parliament in Strasbourg. (I owe this idea to a Franco-British manifesto recently published by the Institut Montaigne and the Centre for European Reform.)

CNN, 27 October 2005
Blair hosts scaled-down EU summit
The EU has lost its sense of purpose, and with that, its popularity," the London-based Centre for European Reform and the Institut Montaigne in Paris, said in a joint report issued on the summit's eve. "The Union has helped to bring peace across the continent and wealth for most of its inhabitants. But citizens are hardly aware of these benefits."

The Guardian, 26 October 2005
Liberal v social EU: the false dichotomy
Much of this might have been avoided, suggested Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform in a recent paper, if politicians - and journalists - had resisted the temptation to exploit the issue. The debate over "liberal versus social Europe" was to a large degree misconceived. "Is the gap between the Anglo-Saxon economic model and the continental one really that big?" Ms Barysch asked. "On closer inspection there are as many similarities as there are differences. More importantly, perhaps, there are signs of convergence." ..."All EU countries are struggling to preserve a decent level of social safety and public services in the face of growing global competition and ageing populations," Ms Barysch said. "Each country will have to find its [own] answer. But the EU can help them to compete, compare and learn from each other."

Inter Press Service News Agency, 25 October 2005
GLOBALISATION: Amid Budget Spat, EU Searches for the Big Picture
Alasdair Murray, deputy director of London's Centre for European Reform, says all EU countries are facing similar challenges to their social models such as ageing populations, low-wage competition from Asia, and in some places high unemployment. "Unless EU leaders reassure voters about the future of Europe's social dimension, they will not get public support for much-needed reforms, such as the opening of EU services markets," he said. "The EU should not (and cannot) become the focal point for social policy. What the EU needs is not extra rules or powers, but a new narrative that better explains, and advocates, its social dimension," he added.

United Press International, 24 October 2004
Top Europe think-tanks urge refrom
The European Union is at a critical crossroads ahead of this week's Hampton Court summit of the 25 member states, say two of Europe's leading think tanks. Britain's Centre for European Reform in Britain and France's Institut Montaigne published Monday a joint plan to get the EU back on track. "Critics have called into question some fundamental EU policies, such as the euro and the common agricultural policy. Politicians ask whether the Union is really capable of making Europe stronger and more competitive. Many voters across the EU seem to have lost faith in the European project," the joint report begins. Full article

Newsweek, 24 October 2005
Immigration: At the Gates
As the European Union expands, it's come face to face with a new world
"Some say we should keep our buffer zone, and that Europe shouldn't be naive about what it is bumping up against," says Daniel Koehane of the Centre for European Reform in London. "Others say it would help the EU to shape those countries, similar to the way that it has successfully shaped the new member states in the east and even Turkey."

International Herald Tribune, 23 October 2005
Globalization drives a wedge into EU
According to Aurore Wanlin of the Centre for European Reform in London, Sarkozy has shifted his position after witnessing Angela Merkel, chancellor-designate in Germany, who campaigned on a promise of modernization but failed to win a decisive victory.

Times of Oman, 23 October 2005
Blair aims to reassert his EU role at summit
"I get the impression that officials have found this informal (summit) - which was very much Blair's idea - extremely difficult to prepare for," said Alasdair Murray of the Centre for European Reform, an EU-focused think tank in London. "What are you trying to achieve? ... It is an informal. It's not clear that there will be any deal or form of words that is going to satisfy anyone." "They want to talk about social models and long-term reforms of the European model," added Murray in an interview with AFP, "but they haven't really done a lot of preparation on it."

International Herald Tribune, 21 October 2005
For France, cutting farm support may be last straw
With globalization increasingly blamed in France for problems like high unemployment, politicians are unwilling to push through further market openings, said Aurore Wanlin, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a policy Centre based in London. "France will not be necessarily unhappy if Hong Kong is a failure," said Wanlin said.

The Washington Post, 19 October 2005
French say citizens recruited for terror - Training camps in Middle East
''Islamic terrorism is a much bigger problem in Europe than in the US because you don't have the relatively large Muslim community that we do," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in London. ''What the war in Iraq has done is radicalize these people and make some of them prepared to support terrorism. Iraq is a great recruiting sergeant."

International Herald Tribune, 17 October 2005
The Internet in proportion
In "Selling Turkey" (Oct. 8), Mark Leonard of the Centre for European Reform in London is quoted as saying that "rebranding Turkey as an industrial powerhouse is perilous strategy" because "the reality is that most Turks are in agriculture" and that "to pretend that Anatolia is Silicon Valley won't work." The reality is that 90 percent of Turkish exports are industrial goods. The agricultural sector occupies effectively 25 percent of the active population and is responsible for 12 percent of Turkey's gross national product. Nobody has ever pretended that Anatolia is already a Silicon Valley, but it is becoming a major industrial Centre for the European economy. In Europe, Turkey ranks seventh in the automotive industry, first in television manufacturing, first in clothing exports, sixth in refrigerator manufacturing, first in flat glass production and sixth in the iron and steel sector. Turkey's information and communication technologies market, research and development budget and e-government spending have been increasing by several folds in the last years. The reality is that Turkey is the only large, young, dynamic, entrepreneurial and industrial emerging market in Europe. These are basic but not yet well-known facts. Bahadir Kaleagasi, Brussels Turkish Industry and Business Association

BBC Monitoring Service, 15 October 2005
Turkey, Greece, united Cyprus to bring peace in East Mediterranean - minister
Turkish Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul said on Friday [14 October] that Turkey's EU membership will help EU fight common problems in the world on a more sound basis. Addressing a dinner hosted upon the start of a conference on Turkey-EU relations organized by British Council, Centre for European Reform and Turkish Foundation of Economic and Social Studies at Britain's consulate-general in Istanbul, Gul said that NGOs had an important role in Turkey's accession negotiations with the EU. Turkey's membership was to the advantage of EU, Gul said, noting that the reform process in Turkey, particularly restructuring of political, economic, social and judicial standards, would continue. Referring to the good economic and social indications of Turkey, Gul said that Turkey's economy was ranked 17th among world countries and that its annual growth rate was around 10 per cent. Turkey aimed to install security, stability, balance and harmony in its region, said Gul, stressing that Turkey had always been an element of balance in sensitive issues like the Middle East and Iraq. Turkey contributed to efforts of reconstruction in Iraq, resolution of Arab-Israeli conflict and clashes in South Caucasus. Referring to Cyprus issue, Gul said that "I still believe that Turkey, Greece and a united Cyprus will constitute the basis of peace in East Mediterranean." Turkey would continue its active contributions to producing fair, equal and lasting solution to Cyprus problem in consultation with the UN, Gul said. "We all expect EU to implement the decision it took on 26 April 2004 for removing the restrictions on TRNC," Gul said. "Europe is a super power and I believe that Europe will fulfil its global responsibilities in the 21st century. Turkey will contribute significantly to Europe in this process," Gul said. Pointing out to the economic, politic and strategic contributions of Turkey's membership to EU, Gul said that "Turkey has always been a good partner of EU and it will be a responsible, creative and energetic member in the future." The conference which aims to determine the things that need to be done in Turkey's membership process, will continue in closed sessions on Saturday [15 October].

Bloomberg, 14 October 2005
UK's Brown urges British companies to boost sales to China
"Capital-intensive projects by companies including BP Plc, Europe's biggest oil company, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the second largest, form the backbone of U.K. investments in China," said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, a policy institute in London.

European Voice, 13-19 October 2005
Europe 'unprepared' for chemical terrorist-attack
But Daniel Keohane from the Centre for European Reform in London said that not enough resources were being devoted to civil protection. The Commission spent just €6 million on this area in 2003, he noted. The traditional friction between the main EU institutions is hampering preparedness, he felt, arguing that there was also a case for the Commission setting up a 'homeland security' directorate, modelled on the US Department of Homeland Security. "If Berlin suffered a biological attack, Germany's neighbours could be affected as infectious agents can travel easily through the air," he said. "A homeland security directorate would seem to be the obvious place to organise an EU-level response to cross-border terrorist attacks. However, the Commission does not have any police forces, soldiers or emergency services. Only national governments have these resources and can decide how to use them, and they are not willing to cede any powers in this area to the Commission."

Financial Times, 12 October 2005
A union with Turkey would be a prize for a divided world
Yet, as Katinka Barysch, of the Centre for European Reform, notes in an assessment of the economic challenges, the Ecevit and Erdogan governments have put through a host of important reforms since 2001. The economy has returned to healthy growth, while inflation has fallen to single-digit levels.

EurActiv.com, 12 October 2005
Lisbon National Plans: New impetus or just for show?
Other analysts, however, are not so sure about the success of the exercise. "The NAPs are a step in the right direction, as member states are forced to take ownership, but the step may turn out to be too small," said Aurore Wanlin from the Centre for European Reform (CER). "The danger is that because the drawing up of the NAPs is down to the member states, they are not self-critical enough, but that they take this as an opportunity to show off what they have done, rather than focusing on what more needs to be done. Because this is handled under the open method of coordination, the Commission does not have the power to force the member states to implement the NAPs and to be ambitious."

EU Observer, 12 October 2005
Brussels to launch citizens charm offensive
Speaking about the idea for national debates, Daniel Keohane, expert at the Centre for European Reform, said he welcomed the plan, but feared citizens were no longer in the mood to "reflect". "It is not very clear for people what to reflect upon. There is no new treaty that they can now approve or disapprove. People rather demand less talk and more action from the EU.", Mr Keohane stated.

The Times, 11 October 2005
Merkel pays high price for top job
"There is no doubt we will see a watering down of Merkel's programme,"Katinka Barysch, of the Centre for European Reform, said. "When you look at the breakdown of her Cabinet, it is clear she will need a lot of skills to keep this government together."

EU Observer, 11 October 2005
Merkel chancellorship might improve EU relations
Katinka Barysch, from the Centre for European Reform, says that while Mrs Merkel does not give the impression of being an "ardent pro-European" and will continue to protect German interests, she is likely to have a natural sympathy with the current commission. The change in the relationship with the commission will come about mainly because of an expected change in the Franco-German relationship, according to Ms Barysch. She points out that Mr Schroder has stood by French president Jacques Chirac, who has been publicly bashing the commission for being too neo-liberal, but adds that if Mrs Merkel "makes up her own mind ...she will probably have better relations with the commission". ...However, Ms Barysch adds a note of caution to this scenario. She points out that Edmund Stoiber, tipped to become the country's economics minister, may be given more European powers. This will have a "negative effect" if it means more power over the EU budget. Coming from staunchly conservative Bavaria with its large farming lobby, he is set to oppose all changes to the Common Agricultural Policy.

Reuters, 10 October 2005
German parties in deal to make Merkel chancellor
"I presume it will be someone of a lesser standing (than Schroeder), so the SPD mark on German foreign policy will be weaker," said Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform.

The New York Times, 9 October 2005
Europe offers a well-padded safety net
As Katinka Barysch, the chief economist of the Centre for European Reform in London, put it, "the best place to lose your job is in a country where it's easiest to find a new job."

Financial Times, 8 October 2005
Cameron edges ahead to become bookies' choice
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said: "Psychologically such a move would be significant. Even Michael Howard was concerned that the Tories should be in the EPP. If the Tories do leave the EPP, they will have to rub along with more nationalist groups. Psychologically, it would make quite a statement about where they are heading on European issues."

International Herald Tribune, 7 October 2005
Selling Turkey
Mark Leonard, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform in London and the brains behind Britain's rebranding exercise, says rebranding Turkey as an industrial powerhouse is a perilous strategy. "To avoid a backlash, a country's narrative needs to be based on reality," he said. "And the reality is that most Turks are in agriculture. To pretend that Anatolia is Silicon Valley won't work."

The Financial Times, 5 October 2005
Assertive Berlin keeps up bare-knuckle stance
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said in a recent paper that Germany's attitude towards EU institutions under chancellor Gerhard Schröder had gone from "communautaire" to "arrogant".

The Guardian, 5 October 2005
European elites can't ignore the views of their peoples
For Mark Leonard of the Centre for European Reform this is where the EU's bureaucratic style comes into its own. Submit Turkey to a decade of Brussels "nit-picking" and Ankara will have to clean up its act - not just passing liberal laws but implementing them. "It won't be good enough to do it for 10 minutes," says Leonard. "It's got to be for 10 years."

CNS news.com, 4 October 2005
Long, hard road ahead for Turkish EU membership
"Once countries find out that the E.U. is a very difficult negotiating partner, demanding all sorts of difficult things, from prison reform to banking sector reform to food standards, people get less enthusiastic," said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London. "They find out that the E.U. basically just imposes its will. It doesn't negotiate, because what accession is about is countries wanting to be members of the European Union and not the European Union getting ready to adjust itself to whoever wants to come in," said Barysch. And although Erdogan has been quoted as saying that if negotiations with the EU don't succeed, there are "alternatives," Barysch said she thought it unlikely that Turkey would seek trading partners elsewhere. "If you're located where Turkey is located, if you're at that stage of development where you're producing manufactured goods, then where are your markets?" she said. "Who are they going to sell that stuff to, China, Russia? No, it's the European Union." Barysch also did not think alliances with other Muslim nations in the Middle East were that likely an alternative for Turkey, which was viewed with suspicion by nations in that region. "Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952, has a been a staunch ally of the United States until quite recently, has very good relations with Israel and is not an Arab country," said Barysch.

Bloomberg, 29 September 2005
EU Will Hold Emergency Meeting to Save Turkish Talks
Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the London-based Centre for European Reform, said the prospect of a last-minute accord depends on how much support Austria has from other EU nations. "If Austria is isolated, as I think it is, the likelihood of an agreement is very high,'' she said by telephone today from Munich. "In the unlikely event Austria has a strong coalition with some big member states, there would be language in the negotiating plan on a privileged partnership, the Turks would walk away and the talks would be delayed.''

The Washington Post, 29 September 2005
EU Official Vows to Trim a Thicket of Rules
"The perception is that unelected bureaucrats are constantly sending out directives, particularly on business and all sorts of issues, from the size of tractor seats to much more serious health and safety issues," said Daniel Keohane, a senior analyst at the London-based Centre for European Reform. "The main idea is to show it is getting away from interfering."

Kurier [Austria], 29 September 2005
"Wiens wenig durchdachter Vorschlag"
Die oft beschworenen Probleme bei Verhandlungen und letztlich der Aufnahme der Türkei in die EU für durchaus lösbar hält auch das einflussreiche Centre for European Reform (CER) in einer neuen Studie. "Trotz aller Schwierigkeiten ist es wichtig nicht zu vergessen, welche Vorteile ein EU-Beitritt der Türkei beiden Seiten bietet." Neben Sicherheit und Stabilität könnten die bisherigen Mitgliedstaaten auch auf wichtige Konjunkturimpulse aus der Türkei, einem rasch wachsenden Markt mit riesigem Nachholbedarf, hoffen. "Eines ist klar: Es wird ein langer und harter Weg", schreibt Ko-Autorin Katyinka Barysch. Nach Ansicht Londons aber ist es ein lohnender.

Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 28 September 2005
"Wenn Deutschland nicht schnell eine handlungsfaehige Regierung bekommt, die entschlossen die Probleme bei Finanzen, Sozialsystemen und Arbeitsmarkt in Angriff nimmt, wird das auf Dauer ganz Europa zu spueren bekommen", analysiert Aurore Wanlin vom Londoner Forschungsinstitut Centre for European Reform. ... "Europa wartet sehnsuechtig darauf, dass Deutschland zu alter Staerke zurueckfindet", glaubt Wanlin vom CER.

Tageblatt [Letzebuerg], 28 September 2005
La France brouille sa position sur l'adhésion de la Turquie à l'UE
"Il n'y a plus de position française" sur la Turquie, estime Katinka Barysch, du Centre for European reform, de Londres, selon laquelle "la confusion vient du fait que Chirac veut être au diapason de l'opinion française".

Monsters & Critics, 27 September 2005
Eye on Europe: Turkey's PR battle
'Turkey has to persuade the EU member states that it is like them,' writes commission official Heather Grabbe in a recent essay for the Centre for European Reform think-tank. 'Turkey will not be allowed to join unless all EU countries are convinced that the Turks share European values.' For the former policy analyst, this means accepting a debate on political issues like torture, the treatment of the country's Kurdish minority, the Cyprus situation and the massacre of Armenians almost a century ago. 'They need to meet criticism not with prickliness and nationalist rhetoric, but with moderation and coolness,' writes Grabbe, who now works in the private office of EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn.

The Guardian, 26 September 2005
Regime change, European-style, is a measure of our civilisation
Turkey will have to jump through a number of hoops on issues such as corruption and sewerage, which might trip up many of the oldest EU members. It's a style of regime change which is "cheap, voluntary and hence long-lasting", points out Steven Everts in a new report,Why Europe Should Embrace Turkey.

BBC News, 22 September 2005
Giscard scorns UK's EU presidency
Mark Leonard, foreign policy director of the Centre for European Reform, said the UK presidency could not yet be accused of under-achievement, because July and August were holiday periods in Brussels. Also, he said, the key events of the presidency were always scheduled to fall in the autumn and winter months - such as the start of membership talks with Turkey and an informal summit on economic reform next month. "The interview as a whole was slightly pathetic," Mr Leonard added. "The whole tenor was of a slightly hurt old man who is desperate for a legacy. There are bigger issues on the agenda than re-starting the constitution."

Financial Times, 20 September 2005
Poll deals blow to advocates of EU economic reform
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said: "An awful lot of people thought she would win decisively and that would allow the EU to start again. "It's hard to see how a grand coalition would be particularly good at pushing through the structural reforms that Anglo-Saxons think are necessary." However, Mr Grant argues that if Ms Merkel did become chancellor, the acrimonious group dynamic of the EU - which has pitted Mr Schröder and Jacques Chirac, French president, against Mr Blair and José Manuel Barroso, the liberal European Commission president - could change. "It would leave Chirac much more isolated at European summits and relying on a dwindling group of friends," he said.

CNS News, 20 September 2005
US, EU Want Security Council Referral for Iran
Mark Leonard, foreign policy director at the Centre for European Reform in London, said that he expected the E.U. trio to continue on the diplomatic path. "My feeling is that the diplomatic process will carry on and Iran's strategy based on walking a fine line between giving people enough so that it doesn't lose the support of the international community is going to create a protracted process and not an immediate crisis," he said. ...Leonard argued that the talks had failed because "the EU hasn't been able to offer a clear enough differentiation - very juicy carrots so that Iran foregoes its attempts to master the fuel cycle, and tough sanctions if it doesn't."

The Scotsman, 20 September 2005
Deadlock in German leadership race slows reform
"Tony Blair wanted Angela Merkel to win with a clear mandate," said Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform, a London think-tank with close ties to Downing Street.

Agence France Presse, 20 September 2005
German poll result clouds Europe's reform drive
"Germany will not be able to restore its position as one of the EU's natural leaders so long as its economy continues to stagnate," said Charles Grant of the London-based Centre for European Reform. "The next government ... should take a lead in reinvigorating the EU's Lisbon process of economic reform," he added.

International Herald Tribune, 19 September 2005
Barroso nudges Germans
Charles Grant, director of Centre for European Reform in London, said that although Gerhard Schröder had pushed for economic change during his tenure as chancellor, he would now agitate against further economic reforms if he remains in government as he positions himself for another election, which could come soon.

Deutsch Welle, 19 September 2005
Election Raises International Questions
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, believes the Franco-German alliance is a central one for Europe. "Relations with France should remain central to Germany's European policy," whatever government comes to power, he wrote in an essay. "Without close Franco-German co-operation, the EU can achieve very little. But this alliance should be less exclusive and exclusionary than it has been under Schröder," he added.

Mail & Guardian Online [South Africa] 19 September 2005
How German voters disappointed Blair
"I think Downing Street was hoping for a clear victory [by Merkel] for three reasons," agreed Mark Leonard, of the Centre for European Reform think tank in London. "First of all, for personal reasons, because relations with Gerhard Schröder had reached an all-time low. "Secondly, for political reasons, because it [Downing Street] wants allies for economic reform in Europe - and a clear, strong Merkel mandate would have completely changed the political dynamics. "And thirdly, in a way, they just wanted to see a government with a mandate. When Germany is so internally preoccupied with its problems, it's not really playing a constructive role ... It's tempted to block things rather than act."

Newsweek, 19 September 2005
Germany: It's Decision Time
"If Germany reforms, France and Italy will be pressed to follow," says Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform (CER), a —London think tank. "That can only make Europe stronger." ... "Any government has to accept that, in some sectors, Germany won't be able to compete. Jobs will go to Eastern Europe or China," says the CER's Barysch. "That's the driving force for reforms, not whether or not Germany gets a Reagan or a Margaret Thatcher."

Business Week, 19 September 2005
France: More Talk, Little Action
While the government has eased some provisions of the notoriously rigid labor code, it has left in place stringent anti-layoff rules that deter employers from hiring. Nor has it proposed any significant cut in public-sector spending, which consumes about half the national economy. "Nobody wants to touch these things before an election," says Aurore Wanlin, a French political analyst at the London-based Centre for European Reform.

TF1 [France], 18 September 2005
Merkel et le couple franco-allemand
Chirac et Schröder "ont réussi à se rapprocher, mais dans la défense purement tactique d'intérêts (Politique agricole commune, budget, Irak)", relève Aurore Wanlin, du Centre for european reform, basé à Londres. "C'est un moteur qui tourne à vide", estime-t-elle. Pour Sylvie Goulard, spécialiste de la relation franco-allemande et enseignante au Collège d'Europe à Bruges (Belgique), Merkel "remettra en cause, et c'est une bonne chose, certaines dérives Schröder-Chirac". ..."Merkel pencherait plus du côté de Tony Blair que du côté français", dit Aurore Wanlin. "Mais elle va se retrouver dans la même position que Gerhard Schröder : s'appuyer sur les Français, sur le budget ou sur la PAC, est souvent plus facile".

The Financial Times, 15 September 2005
Schröder's efforts poised to bear fruit just as he prepares to depart the scene
For Charles Grant, the head of the Centre for European Reform in London, "Schröder and Joschka Fischer, his Green foreign minister, deserve credit for giving Germany a more 'normal' foreign policy."

The Guardian, 14 September 2005
Bush should not count on a pushover
But although the CDU calls for a "new start" in US-German relations, Ms Merkel would be no pushover, said Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform. "Merkel will go as far as she can but she can't go overboard. Public opinion is a factor and Bush is very unpopular in Germany. She may have to wait for a new US president." ...Both men could be politely rebuffed, Ms Barysch suggested. "Merkel is less likely to cosy up to the French and will be closer to Blair and the UK on some issues ... It's about recovering Germany's traditional balancing function within Europe and in the transatlantic relationship. Germans like France, they like the social market, they admire its stand on Iraq. But she knows she has to disentangle herself from the French embrace."

CNS News, 16 September 2005
Conservative Still Favored to Win in Germany
"If Merkel gets elected it will definitely be positive for Germany's relationship with the United States because there was a personality problem between Schroeder and Bush," said Aurore Wanlin, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London. Wanlin did not believe, however, that transatlantic relations would not return to the level of warmth they enjoyed during the Cold War and the Helmut Kohl era (1982-1998). "Germans used to be grateful after the Second World War when the U.S. helped rebuild Germany but now Germans think that is the past," said Wanlin. "They have become pacifists and they don't share the views of the 'neoconservatives' in the U.S. They're quite shocked by their attitudes toward Iraq and even Iran." ..."If Angela Merkel gets elected, it will be positive in the economic reform process in Europe," said Wanlin. "There's going to be a big momentum and Europe needs Germany to be performing well."

World Peaace Herald, 16 September 2005
German foreign policy shift seen
"One of Schroeder's biggest foreign policy mistakes has been to cozy up to Chirac at a time when the Franco-German alliance has run out of steam," says Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the London-based Centre for European reform. "Being too close to France is not in Germany's national interests. It has lost Berlin friends in Europe and made it support policies it doesn't believe in -- like the Common Agricultural Policy."

Agence France Presse, 13 September 2005
Merkel pourrait créer un électrochoc salutaire au couple franco-allemand
Chirac et Schröder "ont réussi à se rapprocher, mais dans la défense purement tactique d'intérêts (Politique agricole commune, budget, Irak)", relève Aurore Wanlin, du Centre for European Reform, basé à Londres. "C'est un moteur qui tourne à vide", estime-t-elle.

The Observer, 11 September 2005
Iron frau with a tinpot plan for Germany
'Schroeder's done much more than Kohl did in 16 years,' said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform. 'I would be more bullish about the German economy in the circumstances, because they have gone through a lot of pain. I think either leader would necessarily continue the reform process. There's a consensus that Germany has to change.' ...Barysch says there has also been plenty of change at the grassroots. 'The real revolution has happened at company level: real wages have been stagnating for years, people are working more hours for the same money, and so on.'

Reuters, 9 September 2005
Merkel could transform EU
During the last three years, Schroeder has revived Germany's close relations with France in ways that damaged ties with the United States, the UK and the countries of central and Eastern Europe," Charles Grant, director of the London-based Centre for European Reform, wrote in an essay. "Germany will not be able to restore its position as one of the EU's natural leaders so long as its economy continues to stagnate," said Grant. He argued that the next Berlin government should take a lead in reinvigorating the EU's Lisbon process of economic reform, continuing to work with France but involving Britain, Spain, Poland and smaller countries more frequently.

Financial Times, 9 September 2005
Merkel's meeting with Putin signals policy continuity
Katinka Barysch, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform, also foresaw no "fundamental realignment of German foreign policy under Merkel. There is no need to change the basic parameters."

CNN, 8 September 2005
Europe terror measures logjammed
Hugo Brady, of the Centre for European Reform, said: "There is overlap between, say, the Europol and the EU's Threat Assessment Centre, as to which receives co-operation from the national security services, from the intelligence services, and this information is really gold dust." ...The hope is that they will settle a basic strategy, doing less but doing it better, thinning down that list of 150 measures. But experts say the best hope lies in ground-level practicality. "That means closer cooperation between police forces, more instinctive trust between police forces, more instinctive trust between the security services. But that is something that can only be built up with time," Brady said.

EurActiv.com, 8 September 2005
After textiles shoes may be next EU-China trade issue
Katinka Barysch, a policy analyst from the Centre for European Reform, told EurActiv: "China is the biggest target of EU anti-dumping action. If there were any action on shoes, it would be taken on the basis of anti-dumping rules if it could be shown that China was sending goods to Europe at markedly lower prices than were being sold in Asia." However, she added that "the Commission does not want to be seen to be acting in response to the shoe manufacturing lobby as it would send a message to other lobbies to come and do likewise."

The Guardian, 7 September 2005
Bush failed to charm EU, says survey
Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, said: "George Bush's charm offensive did work. It was aimed at governments and he did well at that level - that is important because foreign policy is decided by governments, not by public opinion. He did talk up the EU and they did shift slightly on Iran and the Middle East."

International Herald Tribune, 6 September 2005
Schröder legacy: Failure on German-vision thing
A series of tax measures and the Hartz IV labour market program called timid even by the London-based Centre for European Reform, generally disposed to be favorable?

Newsweek, 5 September 2005
The 'Anglo-Social Model'
"Increasingly, European countries are looking at each other to see what's working, and what's not," says Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London. ...As Barysch has pointed out, Britain's budget has swung from a big surplus (almost 4 percent of GDP in 2000) to a sizable deficit (close to 3 percent of GDP in 2004). ...This makes Britain resemble something of a socioeconomic chameleon. One moment it looks American; the next, European.

International Herald Tribune, 5 September 2005
EU presses on after charter vote
Will there be a budget deal by December? "I don't think so," said Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform in London. "Every country is under pressure to defend their national interest."

Gulf Times [Qatar], 5 September 2005
Textile row casting a shadow over Blair's EU mission to China, India
"Tony Blair will find himself in the rather strange position of a free-trader ... defending a position he doesn't believe in," said Mark Leonard of the Centre for European Reform, a London think-tank.

EurActiv.com, 1 September 2005
UK in breach of stability pact for 2nd year in a row
Pointing out that the pact's sanctions mechanism did not apply to the UK as a non-eurozone country, Katinka Barysch, an economic policy analyst from the Centre for European Reform, told EurActiv that, "with the emphasis of the pact having moved to sustainability (ie debt levels), it is unlikely that the Commission will come up with and even less likely that EcoFin will back a harsh report for the UK".

EU Observer.com, 30 August 2005
EU faces uphill struggle as it returns to work
In a recent article for the Brussels-based E!Sharp magazine, Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, argues that because of the difficulty in getting every member-state to ratify a treaty "there will be no more treaty-based integration in the foreseeable future". "Twenty years of progress to a more united Europe have come to an end", he concludes.

The Washington Post, 29 August 2005
Denmark Tries to Act Against Terrorism as Mood in Europe Shifts
"The mood has shifted in Europe more toward security than it was before the London bombings," said Daniel Keohane, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London. "The Europeans have always been very nervous about infringing on civil liberties. But when you experience terrorism, it changes your views."

The Washington Post, 26 August 2005
Vast relationship behind textiles dispute
China's growing economic strength is "turning up the heat on the EU, and not only in textiles," said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the CER. But the EU "often finds it difficult to think about China in strategic terms," she added. "Most Europeans are hardly aware of China's growing importance" in world trade, she wrote in a recent study on EU-China relations.

Financial Times, 26 August 2005
Consumers ambiguous on low-cost clothing
Katinka Barysch of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank, says organising consumers in trade debates is hard. "For textile workers, these quotas matter a great deal. But no one is going to demonstrate in the street with a placard because their T-shirts are 80 cents more expensive."

Corriere della Sera, 12 August 2005
Co-operation in anti-terror struggle will make or break EU
Between Middle Eastern fronts and European rear areas, the new geopolitics of the jihad does not allow separating foreign security from domestic security. Taken singly, measures like the suspension of Schengen [agreements] will not do much good. The worst-case scenarios for European solidarity, or what remains of it, are different, however. The first is the one hypothesized by a recent study by London's CER [Centre for European Reform] on counter-terrorism in Europe. After a terrorist attack, a European government could discover that another EU government has not shared information crucial to preventing it. The example cited by the CER, in order to stress the "holes" in European co-operation, is important for Italy: the case of Mohamed Daki, already interrogated by the German police in 2001 for possible ties with the "Hamburg cell" (author of the attack on the Twin Towers), later released for lack of evidence, and then arrested in Milan in April 2003 while he was recruiting jihadists for the Iraqi front.

Reuters, 12 August 2005
EU has few options as Iran talks near collapse
In the long run, several analysts predict a return to negotiation, if only because the stakes are so high. "Diplomacy will return at some point because no one wants Iran to have an unfettered nuclear programme," said Mark Leonard of London's Centre for European Reform.

The Guardian, 12 August 2005
Germany's new left upsets the applecart
Similar grassroot pressure is also evident in post-referendum France and the Netherlands. But such a mould-breaking upheaval was incredibly hard to achieve under Germany's electoral system, said Mark Leonard of the Centre for European Reform. The 1998 election was the only occasion in the postwar period when a government was forced out by voters alone, he said. Change was normally achieved by minor parties such as the Free Democrats switching sides. "This encourages identity politics... That's what's happening now. The focus is on individuals like Merkel, not on policies, because nobody really knows what to do. The energy is all on the left. But they are not going to win, so it's a negative force."

World Peace Herald, 11 August 2005
Analysis: Which economic model for EU?
"Is the gap between the Anglo-Saxon economic model and the continental one really that big?" asks Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform think-tank in a recent article entitled 'Liberal versus social Europe.' "On closer inspection, there are as many similarities as there are differences." Barysch blames the popular stereotypes about liberal vs. social Europe on the fact that the two sides are 'out of sync.' "When Brits think about social Europe, they are haunted by pre-Thatcher memories of high taxes, state industries and social unrest. When the French or Germans talk about 'Anglo-Saxon liberalism' they envisage a future of cut-throat capitalism where safety nets have dissolves and all workers earn Chinese wages."

World Peace Herald, 9 August 2005
Analysis: Iran move questions EU tactics
"Iran presents a test case for European foreign policy," wrote Steven Everts, then a research fellow at the London-based Centre for European Reform and now an adviser to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, in a report published last year. "After the Iraq débâcle, the European Union
badly needs a foreign policy success." Everts said the EU needed to demonstrate two things: that its approach toward Iran could stay united under pressure and that its strategy of "conditional engagement" with Tehran could deliver real results. "It is difficult to fault the EU," says Mark Leonard, foreign policy director at the Centre for European Reform. "It was engaged with the Iranian problem even before it was a crisis, it has been tough in its dealings with Tehran and it has been on the front foot throughout the negotiations. If it fails, it will be an honorable failure...No one has got a better solution than the European one...If you want to know whether this is a success or a failure, you only have to compare Iran with North Korea, where the west has absolutely no leverage."

Polish News Bulletin, 8 August 2005
Bad News for Poland: UK Delays Talks on New EU Budget
"After the bombings in London, the EU budget is no longer a priority for the British," said Aurore Wanlin of the Centre for European Reform (CER).

Scotland on Sunday, 6 August 2005
Teenagers to swear allegiance at Citizens Days
Mark Leonard, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, who has written a book on renewing British identity, said: "There have to be proper integration policies. At present, people of different ethnic mixes live in a series of walled, gated communities... It is not about being English, white or Christian... Everyone who lives here should have to learn the language." The call is put into context by figures showing that there are more than 300 languages spoken in London alone. "There also have to be citizenship classes so that people can be properly integrated," he adds.

International Herald Tribune, 5 August 2005
Uneasy passage for Turkish economy
"The Turks are quite angry," said Katinka Barysch, chief economist of the Centre for European Reform, a research group in London, who recently wrote a report about Turkey. "They think, 'we've done so much for the EU, now the EU needs to do something for us'."

Stars & Stripes, 5 August 2005
Baader-Meinhof Gang attacked U.S. troops, bases in 1970s-1980s
Daniel Keohane, a terrorism expert at the Centre for European Reform in London, said he saw significant differences between the Red Army Faction and today's radical Islamist militants, in ideology, tactics and weaponry. "The amount and the number of bombs are on a greater scale than any European group has ever used," he said.

Bloomberg, 2 August 2005
French Premier Says EU-Turkey Talks May Be Delayed
"The whole Turkey decision is a game of chicken,'' said Katinka Barysch, an analyst at the London-based Centre for European Reform. "There are lots of countries that want to speak out on it, but no one wants to be seen as the one who vetoes the process.''

World Peace Herald, 29 July 2005
Analysis: Bashing the euro
"People are confused about the causes of their economic problems," says Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London. "They increasingly see the EU as part of the problem, not part of the solution." Barysch also accuses European leaders of overselling the euro before its introduction and for failing to explain its effects when it landed in people's pockets. "They assumed people would love the euro as part of their European identity and they didn't." ... "It's a win-win situation for Berlusconi," says Barysch. "He gets to bash Brussels and the opposition at the same time."

European Voice, 28 July 2005
Barroso bent on a return to Europe's centre-stage
Mark Leonard from the Centre for European Reform in London said a seminar on the European model could help stimulate debate but would be unlikely to have a major impact on public opinion. "European leaders need to prove that there is more to Europe than politicians sitting around in rooms, talking about treaty changes and institutions," he added. "They need to be able to prove that Europe can be the answer to sluggish growth, the lack of jobs, terrorism, immigration and foreign policy. The challenge is to remind people that Europe is about the real problems people are worried about, rather than a political club that exists only for an elite."

Bloomberg, 28 July 2005
Supachai Seeks 'Reality Check' as WTO Misses Target
The Hong Kong summit presents the last opportunity to draft a final agreement to cut global trade tariffs before the Bush
administration's negotiating mandate from the U.S. Congress expires in July 2007. "The real crisis'' may come in October or November, said Aurore Wanlin, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London. "The key will be to have Brazil, India, the EU and US move together.''

Newsweek, 25 July 2005
L'Etat? C'est Moi ... Not Jacques Chirac's time has come—and gone. French ask: why doesn't he do a de Gaulle and step down?
Merkel likely to be Germany's next chancellor, that hoary partnership could unravel. Clearly, she sees no gain in cozying up to Chirac the way Gerhard Schroder has done. "She won't want to be part of the losing team," says Mark Leonard of the London-based Centre for European Reform. Indeed, Moisi sees a weak French presidency as pushing the weight in the European Union even farther away from the old Franco-German Centre of gravity: "It probably means that, for 21 months, there will be more Great Britain in Europe and less France." ..."The only way that Chirac seems to be trying to legitimize himself is with destructive, hostile attacks on the European level," says Leonard, adding that Chirac is increasingly seen as "a wild card who could come and screw things up."

The Economist, 23 July 2005
Counter-terrorism in Europe - The fight within
As the EU grows larger, so does queasiness in its biggest memners about sharing really hot intelligence with the entire block, says Daniel Keohane of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank. "There will be no Euro-CIA", he thinks.

New York Times, 20 July 2005
Court lets German linked to terror go
"The Darkazanli case is very important, first because it involves an alleged Al Qaeda connection, and second because it raises questions about whether the European arrest warrant can work at all," said Daniel Keohane of the Centre for European Reform in London.
"One argument was that in a modern world where terrorism crosses borders without restrictions, we needed modern methods that would overcome the traditional high national frontiers to law enforcement," said Hugo Brady, a terrorism expert also at the Centre for European Reform. "So if a country's authorities issue a European arrest warrant, the person has to be extradited immediately, with very little room for objection," he said.

The Daily Telegraph, 19 July 2005
The happy couple are ready for European honeymoon
An analyst, Mark Leonard, the director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform in London, said the Sarkozy-Merkel meeting gave people "the sense of a new broom sweeping through Europe".

Voice of America, 19 July 2005
France Hosts German Opposition Leader
Aurore Wanlin, a researcher at the Centre for European Reform in London, says Ms. Merkel's trip to Paris is a chance to buff up her international qualifications. A former East German, Ms. Merkel has focused largely on domestic politics. "She really does not know about France and she really does not know about the French-German relationship," she said. "She has a profile in Germany." ...And despite some critics who suggest that the Franco-German axis is no longer relevant in Europe, Ms. Wanlin believes its still important. "When France and Germany manage to agree on a project, and to solve their differences and when they manage to convince the others to go along with them, then the European Union is in good shape," she said. In some ways Ms. Wanlin says, President Chirac has more in common with Ms. Merkel, despite his close relationship with the German chancellor.

World Peace Herald, 19 July 2005
German opposition leader meets with Chirac
"Angela Merkel is only now waking up to the fact that the EU exists and that Franco-German relations are important for Germany," said Aurore Wanlin, an analyst at the London-based Centre for European Reform, offering another take to the Merkel visit. "She wants to take advantage of this tradition," Wanlin added, "and she wants to get to know her French partner." ..."But she also has a more reformist rhetoric, in terms of economic reforms, than either Schroeder or Chirac," Wanlin added. ..."When France and Germany manage to agree on a project and to solve their differences, and when they manage to convince the others to go along with them, then the EU is in good shape," Wanlin said. "But," she added, "when the Franco-German relationship is more defensive and protective of national interests -- as is the case right now, then the EU is much more challenged to find a compromise at the EU level."

Reuters, 18 July 2005
Germany's Merkel seeks reshaped French alliance
"Merkel has indicated that she wants to improve relations with the U.S. and have a less exclusive partnership with France," said Mark Leonard, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform in London."It is interesting that Merkel is going to see Sarkozy as well. It gives people the sense of a new broom sweeping through Europe," Leonard said.

Financial Times, 18 July 2005
Britain's top EU lobby group changes its focus
"The landscape certainly has changed," said Alasdair Murray, deputy director the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank. He said that since 1997 when Mr Blair took office promising to put Britain at the heart of Europe, the debate "has been geared towards a a big ding-dong battle, first over the single currency, then over the constitution . . . that has now gone." Mr Murray foresees the debate in Britain returning to where it was in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the majority of opinion was broadly in favour of the EU and before it took on a divisive and sometimes aggressive character. But he cautioned that while change was underway, it was still "very early days".

The Reporter [Greece], 18 July 2005
Turkey: 'The country's EU accession will not harm the bloc's economy'
Fears that the accession of Turkey to the European Union will harm the bloc's economy are unfounded, according to UK-based think tank, Centre for European Reform (CER). In a CER essay entitled "The economics of Turkish accession", the author, Katinka Barysch claims that Turkey's economy is very small compared to that of the EU-25, and there is thus no reason to fear that the country's accession could harm the Union's economy. Indeed, Barysch says that "what little impact Turkey's EU entry will have is likely to be positive". Moreover, according to the CER essay, Turkey is in many ways better prepared than the Central and European countries were when they started their accession talks. This is in part due to the fact that Turkey already has a customs union with the EU. There are already about three million Turkish residents in the EU, and many Europeans fear that accession will bring in many more Turkish workers, thus increasing competition for jobs. However, Barysch argues that Turkish workers will not gain the right to apply for jobs in other member states until after 2020; by that time, many West European countries may be wooing Turkish workers to help them compensate for the ageing of their own workforces. Furthermore, by the time Turkey joins, the EU will most probably have more efficient institutions and decision-making procedures, and will have solved its labour market problems. It will thus be easier for the country to join the bloc. Eastward enlargement is already forcing the EU towards that direction. Nonetheless, the CER essay warns that Turkey's accession process will be more difficult to manage than that of East European countries, because Turkey's large pile of debt leaves it unusually vulnerable to swings in investor confidence. Also, Ankara will not be able to use EU accession as an anchor for economic reform in the way the East European did.

The Economist, 16 July 2005
Charlemagne: The end of enlargement?
Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, a London based think-tank, argues that countries such as France tolerated past enlargement of the EU in return for a commitment to deeper political integration; but "now that deepening has stopped, the leadership of several EU countries is likely to veto further enlargement."

Reuters, 16 July 2005
EU to press on with diplomatic initiative on Iran nuclear programme
Mark Leonard, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform think-tank, said in a research paper the EU strategy was to "force Iran to choose between nuclear weapons and its relationship with the West". Ahmadinejad has so far argued that Iran, an oil-producing nation of 65 million which sees itself as a leader of the Muslim and developing world, has no need for closer ties with the West, especially the US. But EU officials say aside from public rhetoric they detect no change in Iran's foreign policy yet, partly because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei remains in overall charge. Leonard sketched five possible scenarios, ranging from a grand bargain between Iran and the West to a pre-emptive US or Israeli air strike to try to prevent Tehran going nuclear.

World Peace Herald, 11 July 2005
Analysis: Luxembourg revives EU treaty
"I am afraid that Luxembourg really changes nothing. As long as people claim that the constitution is alive they discredit the European political classes," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform in London. "People can see that the emperor is wearing no clothes, so if you say the emperor is wearing clothes you look ridiculous. We have to get back to first principles and ask what the EU is for and what should its budget be spent on."

The Guardian, 11 July 2005
Luxembourg says yes to European constitution
Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, said: "I am afraid that Luxembourg really changes nothing. As long as people claim that the constitution is alive they discredit the European political classes. "People can see that the emperor is wearing no clothes, so if you say the emperor is wearing clothes you look ridiculous. We have to get back to first principles and ask what the EU is for and what should its budget be spent on."

EU Observer, 11 July 2005
EU constitution - dead or alive?
"I am afraid that Luxembourg really changes nothing. As long as people claim that the constitution is alive they discredit the European political classes", said the director of the Centre for European Reform Charles Grant, according to the Guardian. "People can see that the emperor is wearing no clothes, so if you say the emperor is wearing clothes you look ridiculous", he added.

Voice of America, 8 July 2005
Europe Needs Unity to Battle Terrorism, Analysts Say
Until recently, fighting terrorism, says Daniel Keohane, an analyst at the London-based Centre for European Reform, came second. "Terrorism wasn't exactly at the top of the agenda for the last few months. The focus was on the outcome of the French referendum [on the EU constitution] or on Iran, or on other issues," he said. ...Mr. Keohane explains why. "The problem is the EU It's not like a national government. It doesn't have its proper terrorism service to arrest people. It can only help governments help each other. And the EU is only as good as its weakest member when it comes to security," he said. ...Now, analysts like Daniel Keohane expect a much more proactive Europe when it comes to fighting terrorism. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is EU president for the next six months. "Given that the UK is currently chairing the EU, holding the presidency, and that the UK said it wanted the EU to agree on a clear counterterrorism strategy, I think that it will definitely shoot to the top of the agenda now. There's no question about it," said Mr. Keohane.

The San Fransisco Chronicle, 8 July 2005
TERROR IN LONDON - Europe is slow in terror fight
Less than 16 months after the Madrid train bombings, terrorism is stalking Europe anew, raising questions about what the region has - and has not - done to avoid another attack. Some analysts say the four blasts that rocked London Thursday morning are a warning for a European Union fractured by the collapse of the proposed EU constitution and bitter infighting over issues such as agricultural subsidies and Turkey's potential membership. "Psychologically, they will have a massive impact on EU counterterrorism, " predicted Daniel Keohane, a terrorism expert at the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank. "If there was any gray area, it'll be gone now." ..."The problem is that the EU is not like a national government," said Keohane. "It doesn't have its (own) terrorism service to arrest people. The EU is only as good as its weakest member when it comes to security." ...Co-operation Europe-wide is another matter, however. "Terrorism hasn't exactly been on top of the EU agenda for the last few months," Keohane said. "The focus has been on the outcome of the referendum (on the EU constitution), or on Iran, or on other issues." That is now likely to change. British Prime Minister Tony Blair had already pledged to make the fight against terrorism a top priority during his six months as EU president. "Britain said it wanted the EU to agree on a clear counterterrorism strategy," Keohane said. "Now, I think it will definitely shoot up to the top of the agenda."

World Peace Herald, 7 July 2005
Analysis: Remembering Srebrenica
"The European dream almost died in a town called Srebrenica," writes Mark Leonard, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform in London. A decade later, a generation of EU policy-makers is still haunted by the bloc's failure to prevent the blood-letting.

The New York Times, 7 July 2005
Victory puts Blair in winner's circle
People had started to forget that Tony Blair was once nicknamed Teflon Tony because nothing bad stuck to him. On Wednesday, they remembered why, when London was chosen over Paris, New York and other cities to be host of the 2012 Olympics and Blair seemed, in the words of one French journalist here, "king of the world." "He is shaking off the Iraq war," said Charles Grant, head of the Centre for European Reform in London. "He will never completely leave it behind, but he is succeeding - and the Olympics helps him - in being associated with something other than Iraq." Indeed, with Britain holding the rotating presidency of the European Union since July 1, and as chairman for this year of the G-8, "Blair has the opportunity to do what he does best, and paint the big picture." ..."Blair has reacted well to the European Union crisis by searching to find something positive to come out of it," Grant said. Indeed, in a speech to the European Parliament last month, he emerged as the - self-appointed - custodian of an alternative vision of the Continent's future. ..."I'm quite sure that the other leaders will be sensitive enough to understand that it's been a rough year for Chirac," said Grant at the Centre for European Reform."Schadenfreude is not an emotion that any world leader displays in private. It will make the British more concerned not to upset him," Grant said. "I don't expect the British to be the initiators of any further ding-dong at Gleneagles."

The Moscow Times, 6 July 2005
Doubts Pursue Putin to G8 Summit
"The US and Western Europe have been trying to position Russia as an alternative to OPEC for years," said Katinka Barysch, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform in London. "But the fact is oil output growth is stagnating, investment in energy has declined, oil exports are falling and [gas giant] Gazprom is getting ever more inefficient and intransparent." Barysch said Russia might also have exhausted its usefulness on the one other issue where it could help the West: acting as an intermediary with pariah states like North Korea, Iran and Syria. But the West's relations with Iran, which just elected a conservative Islamist president, and North Korea have reached a stalemate that even Russia cannot break. "How much leverage does Russia really have over North Korea? Even the Chinese admit they cannot do much," Barysch said.

European Voice, 30 June - 6 July 2005
US could take exception to biometrics exemption
Daniel Keohane from the Centre for European Reform in London said that biometrics could prove important in fighting terrorism, especially given how criminals have resorted to passport and credit card fraud. "Biometrics are not a panacea," he added. "But if you talk to governments and people who work in security, they feel that, technological problems aside, they are the best way forward. Certainly, border people think that they will make it easier to compile databases of suspected terrorists."

Le Matin [Morocco], 1 July 2005
La Grande-Bretagne entame sa présidence de l'Union européenne - Tony Blair hérite d'une Europe en pleine crise
"Je n'avais pas entendu un tel discours depuis longtemps. Nous avions oublié à quel point il était pro-Européen, probablement depuis 1999", commente ainsi Daniel Keohane, expert du Centre for european Reform à Londres. "Au début de son premier mandat (en 1997), il était très ouvert sur ses convictions pro-européennes, faisait beaucoup de bruit". Mais Tony Blair s'est calmé très vite, face à une presse britannique largement eurosceptique, voire, pour certains quotidiens populaires, europhobe. "Il a toujours été conscient que l'Europe pouvait lui coûter cher sur le plan intérieur", renchérit Daniel Keohane. ...Il veut réussir sa présidence de l'UE, pour montrer que "Tony Blair ce n'est pas seulement l'Irak", commente Daniel Keohane.

BBC News, 30 June 2005
A six-month charge for EU glory
Tony Blair made an impressive start with his speech in the European parliament on 23 June, but there are many pitfalls and obstacles to negotiate, including the risk of sounding preachy or unsympathetic to European social traditions. "He will have a tricky time doing this without appearing hubristic about the successes of the British economy," says Hugo Brady of the Centre for European Reform. "In continental Europe, you have to remember, the UK is seen as a bastion of American-style capitalism." ..."If Tony Blair wants to have a debate on economic reform, he cannot do it by pushing the Services Directive under the carpet," says Mr Brady.

The Budapest Sun, 30 June 2005
EU's Budapest Compromise
"It will be difficult to reach a compromise on the budget during the British presidency," Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank, told The Budapest Sun. "To broker a compromise you have to be seen as above the arguments, and the UK is widely seen as negotiating for its own national interest." Whilst it was welcome that the new member states were seeking to contribute to finding a way through, she thought that panic was premature. "The EU budget is rarely agreed upon before spring of the year before it comes into force, so we could easily wait until spring 2006," she said - long after the British presidency. Despite resentment at last week's turn of events, she thought that Britain was "still a friend of the new member states." The British Government is currently embarking on a diplomatic offensive to reassure the central European countries of its good faith.

Turkish Daily News, 27 June 2005
Britain faces battle to steer crisis-hit EU
"The French referendum makes it particularly hard for the EU to push ahead with economic reform and enlargement," said Charles Grant of the London-based Centre for European Reform "Many will interpret the 'non' as a vote against liberalization and further accessions," he added

The Messenger [Georgia], 27 June 2005
European Neighborhood Policy for Georgia
Speaking with The Messenger last week, Director of the Centre for European Reform Charles Grant suggested that EU expansion could end with Bulgaria and Romania, which have already entered negotiations on joining the EU. As for countries such as Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Turkey, Grant rules out joining the union, in the near future at least, as highly unlikely.

Tiscali.europe, 27 June 2005
Blair Challenges EU "Inertia" - 'Yes' to Social Europe, but one with solid economic foundations
...the Centre for European Reform, a hugely respected think-tank on EU affairs, recently wrote that it would be wrong to write off the Lisbon Agenda. In a table of heroes and villains compiled for its annual Lisbon review, the CER states that almost all EU members have "passed a raft of measures" many tackling labour market and pensions reform.

International Herald Tribune, 25 June 2005
For Europe, the costs of a weak Germany
...the debate between Anglo-Saxon and Continental models is a caricature that fails to take into account the complexities of Europe.
"I see a convergence toward a model that is less liberal than what Margaret Thatcher advocated but less restrictive than what Jacques Chirac is defending," said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform.

Bloomberg, 24 June 2005
EU may step up calls for stronger Yuan at ministerial meeting
"Chinese competition will turn up the heat on Europe to reform its economies,'' said Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform. "China will sooner or later move into the kinds of goods we are trying to be competitive in. We need to have a strategic debate in Europe about how we deal with a rising China.''

The Financial Times, 23 June 2005
Anglo-French defence drive central to EU foreign policy
"The fact that Chirac and Blair were throwing jam rolls at each other at the most recent summit should not slow the process down," says Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank.

EU Business, 22 June 2005
Blair: the arch-europhile turned villain of Brussels
"You have two sides in Blair," said Alasdair Murray from London-based think tank the Centre for European Reform. "On one side he is very pragmatic... another side of him is much more messianic - he has a vision, he uses language that has almost a sort of religious imagery in it. "On the issue of Europe, the rhetoric is going into that direction, and there is a sense of expectation about his speech."

International Herald Tribune, 21 June 2005
Politicus: With eyes on him, will Blair take the EU lead?
But doesn't Blair, who says this is his last term in office, have the ambition and emotional force to want to become the man who set Europe right, pushing it past its no-risks-please instincts of dependency? "He has the ability," said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a pro-Europe research institute here. "But this just may be too much for British politics. Most people here feel Europe is a failure, and therefore, why get involved?"

Reuters, 21 June 2005
"Lame duck" Schroeder limps towards early election
"The expectation in Germany is that Schroeder is on his way out and that view is reflected abroad as well," said Katinka Barysch of the London-based Centre for European Reform. "As far as the budget is concerned, there are not a lot of tears being shed in Britain, mainly because of Schroeder's closeness to (French President Jacques) Chirac."

Chicago Tribune, 19 June 2005
Amid crisis, EU leaders bicker - Constitution on hold; growth not mentioned
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London think-tank, said the EU must keep its promise to start negotiations with Turkey. "It is up to political leaders to explain why enlargement is good for Europe, and if they cannot do that, enlargement will not happen," Grant said.

AFP, 19 June 2005
Dismal summit steels Blair for key EU debate
...analysts believe that time and circumstances are on Blair's side as a new generation of EU leaders - many of them from the enlargement states in the formerly communist eastern Europe - comes to the fore. "I think he wins a grudging respect from his opponents, said Alasdair Murray of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank in London that specialises on EU issues. "He's in a much more powerful position than before, because he's at least won an election and he's still the master of his own destiny," Murray said by telephone. "The others are clearly going -- Schroeder quite soon and Chirac in the not too distant future."

The Guardian, 18 June 2005
Money drives wider rift in relations - Wrangling over rebate sours project
Alasdair Murray, of the Centre for European Reform, said: "We don't need technically to get the budget done. We didn't last time. If there hadn't been 'no' votes, we definitely would not have got it done at this point." Mr Murray believes that a failure to reach an agreement will actually help the EU because he argues that it is better to secure an enduring deal - with a serious look at how the EU finances itself - if voters are to warm to the European project. "Trying to achieve unanimity and harmony when it doesn't really exist is unnecessary," he said. "The debate is going to be difficult and fractious."

Reuters, 18 June 2005
Blair, blamed for crisis, picks up EU baton
If Blair can capitalise on the opportunity, he could redefine himself and even prolong his premiership, thwarting the plans of leader-in-waiting Chancellor Gordon Brown for an early handover. Or at least he could bow out on a high. "If he can have a successful presidency where he is clearly seen to be shaping the future of Europe and the EU economy, with serious deals on climate change ... it will certainly go a long way to rebuilding his image as an active reformer," said Daniel Keohane, an analyst at London's Centre for European Reform, also close to New Labour thinking. "Will he then be as keen to step down?" he asked.

Spiegel [Germany], 17 June 2005
BUDGET WRANGLING IN THE EU - Is Europe Really Facing a Crisis?
Do the, to put it mildly, rather lively budget negotiations at the EU summit in Brussels held on Thursday and Friday this week actually amount to a crisis? No, says Katinka Barysch, chief economist at the London-based think tank, the Centre for European Reform. "Do you think that in the past EU leaders didn't spend three days haggling behind closed doors over the common agricultural policy? Of course they did," she says. "Every time. It would be nice if that wasn't necessary, but we have just taken on ten new members, we have a new currency and less money to go round." The budget debate "is normal and it's certainly not a crisis," she adds. "We have moved a lot over the last few years: a single currency, new common policies and several enlargements," she says. "So it is understandable that people need time to get used to all the changes." Barysch also argues that the massive attention focused on this week's summit has a lot to do with the fact that the meeting comes hot on the heels of the Dutch and French rejection of the European constitution. ...While Katinka Barysch believes that a lot hangs on whether the economy picks up any time soon, she says that in the long run Europe will be more about groups of countries within the union working together. "Trying to get 28 states to move together in one big convoy is just not going to happen. There will be more flexibility. We are already doing this. Come countries have the euro, some are in (the group of European countries that have dropped border controls called) Schengen." And, although accession for new members will be slowed down, she believes that further expansion will continue. "Bulgaria and Romania will go ahead.... And as for Turkey, unless Chirac or the Turkish government do anything really stupid, the joining process will continue. It won't be fast, but it will proceed."

Townhall [Washington], 17 June 2005
European Summit Held Amidst Wide Disagreement
...analysts and diplomats have concluded that the constitution is effectively dead although this does not mean, despite the coincidence with the budget problems, that the European Union is falling apart. "Obviously there are problems. The treaty is effectively dead," said Daniel Keohane, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London. "And it's difficult and very unfortunate psychologically that the leaders are also arguing over money at the same time."

International Herald Tribune, 16 June 2005
Discussions on the EU's future
Charles Grant - Director of the Centre for European Reform in London
Europe has always been a compromise between those who think of it as a political union and those who take a more instrumentalist