Press quotes

  • The Greek austerity marathon
    BBC News, 06 February 2012

    In a paper [Greece's real challenge] for the CER, Katinka Barysch cites numerous examples of where the Greeks have failed to deliver.

  • What if the Germans are wrong?
    Mail Online, 06 February 2012

    This fact was examined last week in a paper by Simon Tilford, chief economist at the CER (full disclosure, the CER receives an annual grant from the parent company of the Irish Daily Mail, as well as from a shed-load of other big corporates such as Shell, Boeing and Diageo).

  • L'OTAN accélère son retrait d'Afghanistan
    Le Monde, 04 February 2012

    Pour Edward Burke, chercheur du CER, à Londres, la décision française envoie "un signal politique clair à Kaboul" parce qu'elle est la première à indiquer que "la stratégie de l'OTAN n'a pas fonctionné" à l'égard d'un régime qui reste "inefficace et corrompu".

  • Markets lukewarm as EU summit fails to break ground on debt
    The National, 01 February 2012

    "The reason why most governments signed up to this [pact], despite having very strong reservations about it, was because they thought it was a necessary evil in order to persuade Germany to move on other fundamental problems," said Simon Tilford, from the CER in London.

  • Merkel may have got her way with treaty agreement, but at what cost?
    The Irish Times, 31 January 2012

    "This treaty is no use economically, and the idea that you can impose fiscal rules and pro-cyclical policies, and remove room to manoeuvre, is laughable," said Charles Grant, director of the CER think-tank.

  • EU leaders set to admit austerity is not enough
    The New York Times, 29 January 2012

    "Even countries with relatively strong public finances such as Germany — the country's budget deficit fell to just 1 per cent of GDP in 2011 — are tightening fiscal policy," Simon Tilford, the chief economist for the CER in London, wrote recently.

  • Deficit focus questioned as answer to euro crisis
    Associated Press, 28 January 2012

    Simon Tilford of the CER draws an analogy with US insurer AIG, which was bailed out by the US federal government in 2008. AIG was incorporated in the US state of Delaware, yet Delaware did not go bankrupt handling the rescue. The central government stepped in.

  • Merkel and Sarkozy forge unlikely - and unequal - partnership
    Deutsche Welle, 27 January 2012

    "They really are chalk and cheese," says Charles Grant, director of the CER. "She is sober, dull, pragmatic, serious, uninspired, un-visionary. He is impatient, mercurial, full of energy, visionary on a good day - but maddeningly annoying to deal with!"

  • Nicolas Sarkozy, au-delà du bling-bling, vu par "The Guardian"
    Le Monde, 25 January 2012

    "Il se trouve dans une position très difficile, rappelle Charles Grant du CER. Pour la première fois dans l'histoire de l'UE, la France n'est pas en mesure de tirer les ficelles." L'Allemagne, souligne Grant, a peut-être "eu le dessus dans la plupart des discussions clé"

  • Nicolas Sarkozy – the view from Britain
    The Guardian, 25 January 2012

    "He's in a very difficult position," said Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform. "For the first time in the EU's history, France isn't pulling the strings."