Opinion pieces

  • How to wake Britain from sleepwalking to the EU exit, by Charles Grant
    Europe's world, 07 March 2012

    History, geography and economics are all responsible for the UK’s deep-seated euroscepticism, says Charles Grant. But now these forces are strengthening so that Britain could easily leave the Union within 10 years. He sets out tactics for countering that.

  • Le veto russe sur la Syrie n’est pas injustifié, by Edward Burke
    Le Temps, 28 February 2012

    Sans doute Moscou fait-il de la realpolitik en s’opposant à un projet de résolution du Conseil de sécurité exigeant le départ de Bachar el-Assad. Toutefois, la diplomatie russe a raison de penser qu’un tel texte serait intenable.

  • Why European diplomacy is in decline, by Hugo Brady
    E!Sharp, 03 February 2012

    Critics of the EU's External Action Service (EEAS) agree that its creation will hardly be remembered as a high point in the annals of European foreign policy. Some say that the EU's quasi-diplomatic corps does not yet work well because its leadership, under Baroness Cathy Ashton, suffers from inexperience and a poverty of ambition.

  • The European fallacy of Ireland and the Baltics, by Ambrose Evans-pritchard
    The Daily Telegraph, 27 January 2012

    Another excellent paper by Simon Tilford from the Centre for European Reform.

  • Germany's military future is vital for Europe, by Tomas Valasek
    Defence Management Journal, 19 January 2012

    Tomas Valasek, Director of Foreign Policy and Defence at the Centre for European Reform, argues that Germany's next step following its refusal to participate in Libya may be crucial for European defence…

  • End of an affair? City of London and EU in bitter acrimony, by Philip Whyte
    Yale Global, 12 January 2012

    The global financial crisis has had a seemingly odd impact on relations between the City of London, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Before the crisis, the dominant assumption in Britain was that what was good for the City, Europe's largest financial center, was good for the UK and the rest of Europe.

  • Nothing to celebrate, by Charles Grant
    Foreign Policy, 04 January 2012

    Think 2011 was a bad year for Europe? 2012 could be a whole lot worse - if EU leaders don't get serious and deal with these 6 problems.

  • Making EU allies, by Charles Grant
    The Times, 20 December 2011

    The Government should seek to protect the City, but went about it the wrong way at the Brussels summit.

    Sir, Camilla Cavendish's article on the City and the EU (“France defends farmers: we must save the City”, Dec 15) contains much common sense.