Press quotes

  • Eurozone seeks way out of Irish debt crisis
    Business Standard, 16 November 2010

    "Unless the EU changes track and agrees to make the EFSF (rescue fund) permanent and the ECB steps up its purchases of the hard-hit countries' government bonds, investors will believe that default is inevitable and demand correspondingly punitive interest rates," said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the London-based Centre for European Reform. "Contagion to other member-states will be all but inevitable. If, and when, it reaches Spain, the crisis risks spiralling out of control," he said.

  • Lisbon falls flat
    Newsweek, 15 November 2010

    "The Europeans need to realise that if they want to be taken seriously, then they have to be relevant," says Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank.

  • Herman Van Rompuy: The man who wants to control your finances
    The Telegraph, 15 November 2010

    Since coming to power, Cameron has been mending fences with Merkel and Sarkozy, after his provocative decision in opposition to stop sitting with their parties in the European Parliament.

  • Bail-out fund stands by for first big test
    Financial Times, 12 November 2010

    But Simon Tilford, chief economist at the London-based Centre for European Reform, said the shifting sentiment signaled by Ms Merkel's stance has overwhelmed the temporary calm. "The fact that [the EFSF] is there means they're in a better position than they were in late April or early May [at the height of concerns over Greece], but it doesn't change anything fundamental," Mr Tilford said.

  • France takes the lead of G-20
    Voice of America, 11 November 2010

    That's partly why experts like Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London, are skeptical about Mr Sarkozy's goals. "I think he's hoping that taking on the G20, G8 will bolster his international credentials ... I think that could prove a bit of a forlorn hope. He's taking over at a time of considerable international tension. It's been a long time since we've seen such big differences on positons of key issues among the world's leading economies."...

  • Fewer dragons, more snakes
    The Economist, 11 November 2010

    In a paper published earlier this year [Germany opens Pandora's box] by the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank in London, George Robertson (a former NATO secretary-general), Franklin Miller and Kori Schake (defence policy experts who served in the Bush administration) argued that Germany was opening a Pandora's box by trying to provoke a debate on matters that had long been considered settled.

  • Sarkozy signs the law: French retire at 62, not 60
    CBS News, 10 November 2010

    Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London, says Sarkozy "had no choice" other than to get the reform through because otherwise France's - and his - credibility would have suffered. "For anyone outside of France, this looks like a pretty modest move forward ... Other EU countries are moving much much more rapidly" on pension reform.

  • The peril that NATO can't ignore
    New York Times, 10 November 2010

    "EU countries have 89 different weapons programs, while the US, whose budget is more than twice the size of the EU's defence budgets combined, has only 27," said Clara Marina O'Donnell, research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in London. "The main challenge for NATO is that Europe, given its lack of defence capabilities and funds, is not using this chance for greater cooperation, however urgently it is needed." This fragmentation of Europe's defence markets has proved expensive and inefficient.

  • What we talk about when we talk about Germany
    Financial Times, 05 November 2010

    Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, has a nice summary of the debate up on his group's website, with some telling insights about the mood in France over the recent bluster from Berlin ... But Mr Grant also points out how destabilising even the narrowly-focused treaty changes envisioned by the 27 countries could be. Even if Ireland and Denmark are able to avoid referenda on the new language - which could be just a sentence or two added to the Lisbon treaty - other countries could cause problems, Mr Grant notes.

  • EU eyes tougher regulation for credit rating agencies
    Deutsche Welle, 05 November 2010

    "The financial crisis did expose a number of problems with ratings agencies, including major conflicts of interest," Philip Whyte, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, told Deutsche Welle. "The people that were paying credit rating agencies were the same people whose securities were being rated. There's also been a certain amount of disquiet about the power that ratings agencies have," he added.