Opinion pieces

  • Compétitivité ou productivité pour relancer la croissance européenne?, by Simon Tilford
    Les Echos, 20 June 2011

    Une mauvaise compréhension de ce que sont les moteurs de la croissance économique menace la reprise en Europe. Ses dirigeants sont obsédés par la compétitivité et paraissent croire sincèrement que prospérité rime avec excédent commercial.

  • Europe’s competitiveness trap, by Simon Tilford
    Project Syndicate, 16 June 2011

    A flawed understanding of what drives economic growth has emerged as the gravest threat to recovery in Europe. European policymakers are obsessed with national “competitiveness,” and genuinely appear to think that prosperity is synonymous with trade surpluses.

  • Turkey's choice, by Katinka Barysch
    International Herald Tribune, 02 June 2011

    Turkey's election in 2007 was preceded by threats of a military coup. The 2002 one was overshadowed by an economic meltdown.

  • Why the EU needs a migration organisation, by Hugo Brady
    European Voice, 01 June 2011

    A European Migration Organisation would help the EU develop clearer responses to migration. EU leaders will discuss reform of the Schengen area at their summit next week (23-24 June).

  • Greece and Portugal should both go gracefully, by Simon Tilford
    Financial Times, 12 May 2011

    Even as the ink is drying on Portugal's European Union and International Monetary Fund bail-out agreement, evidence is mounting that last year's bail-outs of Greece and Ireland have failed. Far from improving their access to the financial markets, Greece and Ireland face record borrowing costs.

  • Sarkozy-Berlusconi: A border control farce, by Hugo Brady
    The Guardian, 29 April 2011

    When Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi announced plans to weaken passport-free travel in Europe this week, many onlookers concluded that the EU's most tangible achievement, the Schengen zone, was going the way of the single currency.

  • We have reached a share it or lose it moment, by Tomas Valasek
    Defence Management Journal, 26 April 2011

    Despite all the cuts to defence budgets, Europe's militaries are not doing enough pooling and sharing of equipment and personnel; that is the opinion of Thomas Valasek, author of "Surviving Austerity - The Case for a New Approach to EU Military Collaboration".

  • Is Germany flipping the bird at Europe?, by Katinka Barysch
    The Guardian, 22 April 2011

    It would have caused a chuckle among British tabloid readers. In Germany (and Greece) it caused a storm. On February 22 2010, the German news magazine Focus published a cover that depicted the Aphrodite of Milos with an outstretched arm making a very rude gesture at its readers.