• Policy brief by Charles Grant, 02 November 2009

    The Lisbon treaty will be in force before the next British general election, which the Conservatives seem likely to win. The Conservatives will need to tell the world what they intend to do about a treaty they have vehemently opposed.

  • Insight by Charles Grant, 02 October 2009

    Any prediction about the timing of the Czech Republic’s ratification of the Lisbon treaty must be heavily qualified; politics in Prague are so complex and opaque that many Czechs find it hard to understand what is going on. 

  • Bulletin article by Charles Grant, 01 October 2009

    Ireland’s decisive yes to the Lisbon treaty is likely to spur Poland and – after some delay – the Czech Republic to ratify. The Lisbon treaty will probably enter into force early next year, and that is good news for the EU, in three ways.

  • Bulletin article by Clara Marina O'Donnell, 01 October 2009

    Britain’s current approach to defence is unsustainable. Ambitious operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, coupled with expensive weapons programmes, have fed a defence budget deficit that is forecast to be £2 billion a year by 2011-2012.

  • Insight by Katinka Barysch, 29 September 2009

    Guido Westerwelle is the undisputed winner of Sunday’s election in Germany. His Liberal Democratic Party (FDP) attracted almost 15 per cent of the vote, its highest share ever. Angela Merkel will remain chancellor although her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) did slightly worse than in the 2005 election. 

  • Insight by Philip Whyte, 07 August 2009

    Disasters often provoke unseemly bouts of finger-pointing. This has certainly been true of the global financial crisis. In the Anglo-Saxon world, libertarians have blamed it on governments, and governments on ‘bankers’. 

  • Bulletin article by Simon Tilford, 03 August 2009

    Britain’s media and political class have a right to be sceptical about the EU, even hostile to it. But they also have an obligation to be honest about the economic implications of a retreat from full membership of the Union.

  • Bulletin article by Hugo Brady, 03 August 2009

    EDINBURGH, SEPTEMBER 15th 2012 (AFP).