Press quotes

  • EU and South Korea open trade
    The Prague Post, 11 May 2011

    According to Phillip Whyte, a senior research fellow with the London-based Centre for European Reform, the bilateral agreement represents only the second best option for the two sides after multilateral trade talks between the World Trade Organisation and its member countries began to slow more than a decade ago.

  • NATO, EU defend record of saving African migrants
    Voice of America, 10 May 2011

    Analyst Hugo Brady, of the London-based Centre for European Reform, says the sea migration from Africa to Europe has been going on for years. But the numbers have spiked with the recent Arab uprisings. "The reason why the Arab Spring has created so much instability in migration terms is ... obviously people are escaping a very difficult situation," said Brady. Brady says the turmoil in Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere also means these countries no longer patrol their coastlines to prevent migrants from heading to Europe.

  • Analysis: Effort aside, Europe fails to staunch debt crisis
    Reuters, 09 May 2011

    "From the start they have misdiagnosed the problem -- they haven't come clean about what the problem is and hence the medicine is all wrong," said Simon Tilford, chief economist of the Centre for European Reform in London. "Quite clearly, the problem in the case of Greece, Ireland and Portugal is that investors have justified doubts about the ability of those countries to grow sufficiently quickly to service their debts," said Tilford. "In Portugal, the EU sees this as a liquidity crisis, but it's really a solvency crisis.

  • The EU's balancing act on open borders
    International Herald Tribune, 04 May 2011

    "In Europe, we are surrounded by poorer but increasingly internationally mobile peoples who want in to societies boasting the highest quality of life in the world," said Hugo Brady, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform. "It is hard to see how we can deter that desire indefinitely. ... The politics of Schengen are such that no one wants to give up control of their own frontiers but everyone wants some control over other countries' borders," said Mr Brady, the research fellow.

  • France challenges Italy with border checks
    Financial Times, 01 May 2011

    "The rules of the Schengen club are premised on all countries behaving in a way that takes into account the effect of their actions on their neighbours,” says Hugo Brady, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think-tank. "When that stops happening – as we saw in this latest episode – the response from other member states will be to push for tighter borders." Despite the distrust between EU governments, however, Mr Brady argued that the closer monitoring did not mean the end to passport-free travel for most Europeans.

  • The eurozone has little to smile about
    The Wall Street Journal, 01 May 2011

    Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, was the earliest to recognise Greece's insolvency. More recently, Clemens Fuest, president of the German finance ministry's advisory committee, declared that restructuring, the polite word for default, is inevitable.

  • NATO airstrikes raise questions over motives
    Reuters, 01 May 2011

    One answer could be that Western powers are simply hoping to terrify Gaddafi into giving up. "It appears pretty clear the alliance is using real political and physical pressure on Gaddafi," said Tomas Valasek of the Centre for European Reform think-tank. "It is clear they want him to feel unsafe and that his own future is at stake," he said.

  • Far-right parties gain ground in European politics
    National Public Radio, 27 April 2011

    The fact that they can express extreme views with "a veneer of acceptability" actually makes today's far-right leaders more dangerous than yesterday's skinheads, says Simon Tilford, chief economist for the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank that favours European integration. Today, there's a greater sense of unease about Europe's place in a globalised economy, Tilford says.

  • NATO initiatives not seen as decisive in Libya war
    Reuters, 26 April 2011

    Tomas Valasek of the Centre for European Reform think-tank said that despite NATO denials, it did seem the coalition was seeking ways to end the stalemate by targeting Gaddafi. "NATO's official mandate doesn't involve removing Gaddafi from power, so the commanders would deny it and say they are going after communications posts and such, but to me it does smell like they are going after Gaddafi personally. "That would mean a gap between what NATO collectively says it wants to do and what the French, the British and Americans say.

  • Sarkozy, Berlusconi meet amid tension on immigration, M & A
    Bloomberg, 26 April 2011

    "It will be a difficult meeting", said Hugo Brady, a senior research fellow with the Centre for European Reform in Brussels. "Immigration, like economic policy, is such a sensitive issue that it can hardly be controlled at an EU level."