Ten years of the euro: the sceptics got it wrong too

Written by Charles Grant, 03 January 2012

I came across an upbeat pamphlet called EU:2010: An optimistic vision of the future. Written in 2000 by Charles Grant, it set out a vision of a resurgent Europe into which he hoped the second Blair government would take us around about 2005...

So the Europe: 2010 pamphlet is easy to mock with hindsight. But that is not my purpose, quite the reverse. Grant is a clever and sensible fellow whose booklet makes a number of smart predictions... Some of them have come true – he even refers to the then-uninvented EU foreign and security minister as a "Ms CFSP" long before most voters had heard of Lady Cathy Ashton – and notes the growing need for budgetary co-ordination and discipline within the eurozone. How true, Charles!

Link to press quote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2012/jan/03/euro-eu?newsfeed=true

France-Allemagne, deux conceptions de la puissance

Le Monde

15 September 2013

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.

Royal Mail sell-off leaves Postman Pat confused

Financial Times

12 September 2013

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.

German elections 2013: 'Do as we do' will remain the message to Europe

The Guardian

10 September 2013

"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.

Has Berlusconi finally run out of political lives?

The New York Times

08 September 2013

"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."

Syria crisis reveals new paradigm

The New York Times

05 September 2013

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."

The European External Action Service
15 March 2013
The EU, Russia and China
15 March 2013
Annual report 2012
08 February 2013
How Britain could leave the EU
26 November 2012

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