"What are the reasons for British euroscepticism? History (World War II), geography (Britain is an island nation) and newspaper groups that want Britain to leave the EU," said Charles Grant of the CER. "And, for the past year or so, Michel Barnier."
Edward Burke with the CER says "the French decision today reflects a deep frustration amongst many coalition partners that they don't feel that they're making the progress that perhaps has been widely reported in Brussels by NATO and in Washington."
"In Hungary's case, it's a conversation that's been waiting to happen for quite some time," says Hugo Brady of the CER. But he said it was highly unlikely that member-states would follow up the European parliament's request to punish Budapest.
"There’s no doubt that some of the reforms we’re now seeing of labour markets in some (European Union) states are long overdue," said Simon Tilford, of the CER.
The downgrade "certainly reinforces the relative weakness of France to Germany in the current context," said Simon Tilford of the CER. "However, what it also does is isolate Germany."
"It will make it harder to erect firewalls around struggling euro zone economies and convince investors that things are more sustainable," said Simon Tilford, the chief economist for the CER in London.
Hugo Brady of the CER think-tank and a former Irish government official, said the SNP's assumption of automatic membership "would be a very difficult ask because it would set a precedent for other new members that might join."
Charles Grant, director of the London-based Centre for European Reform, told the meeting "it is quite likely Britain will leave the EU within 10 years."
"Contributing troops to these conflicts has been very financially and politically expensive for European countries," says Tomas Valasek of the CER. "There will be some who will rejoice that the US has in effect said that it plans to do fewer 'nationbuilding' wars."
Pour Charles Grant, du Centre for European Reform, à Londres, "l'Allemagne est le grand problème" de la politique européenne de sécurité, car soit elle reste soit neutre, soit elle défend ses propres intérêts.
The missing bit of the narrative is the role played by allies of the UK. The latter-day Bluchers vital to the defeat of a Tobin tax were German industrialists, according to Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform.
"However the Germans vote on 22 September, Berlin's attitude to the EU is not going to change much," Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, wrote this week. Most analysts agree.
"It could potentially be very significant," said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London. "Political instability in Italy is more of a concern than in Spain, Portugal or Greece."
The vote in Parliament "could turn out to be the signal for a strategic shift in favor of insularity," said Ian Bond, a foreign policy specialist at the CER. British lawmakers risked "sending the message that in the future the UK will be content to stay on the sidelines, regardless of what is happening in distant lands."
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