EU legitimacyEU's Rubik's cubeGermany & the EU
  • Can national parliaments make the EU more legitimate?
    Insight by Charles Grant, 10 June 2013
    Can national parliaments make the EU more legitimate?
  • The EU's Rubik's cube: Who will lead after 2014?
    Insight by Hugo Brady, 03 April 2013
    The EU's Rubik's cube: Who will lead after 2014?
  • Germany’s plans for treaty change – and what they mean for Britain
    Insight by Charles Grant, 28 March 2013
    Germany & Treaty change
  • A primer on the German presidency
    Briefing note by Katinka Barysch, 21 December 2006

    On January 1st 2007, Germany takes over the rotating EU presidency. Chancellor Angela Merkel has ambitious goals that include an EU agreement on energy policy and on what to do with the Union's moribund constitutional treaty. Both will be very difficult to achieve.

  • Towards an environmental union
    Bulletin article by David Miliband, 02 October 2006

    When I was involved in the creation of CER in 1994 I hoped it would become an important source of ideas and debate about the future of Europe.
  • Adieu, Europe?
    Opinion piece by
    Open democracy, 29 June 2006

    The machinery of the European Union has recovered from the shock of the failed French and Dutch referenda, but not the heart that pumps it, says Aurore Wanlin.
  • Democracy in Europe: How the EU can survive in an age of referendums
    Essay by Mark Leonard was director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform (2005-2007)., 05 May 2006

    The European Union has never been loved, but for most of the last 50 years it has been accepted. Voters thought that as long as it made them richer and safer they were happy to leave the precise details of treaties to bureaucrats and politicians.
  • What future for free trade in services?
    Bulletin article by Simon Tilford, 03 April 2006

    The controversy that has engulfed the Commission’s draft services directive is hardly surprising: the establishment of a single EU market in services was always going to generate more opposition than the liberalisation of trade in goods.
  • New budget, old dilemmas
    Briefing note by Iain Begg, 22 February 2006

    After months of fierce haggling, the UK government managed to broker a deal on the EU's new budget at the Union's summit in December 2005.
  • EU 2010: A programme for reform
    Policy brief by Charles Grant, Hugo Brady, , Simon Tilford, 03 February 2006

    The European Union is suffering from a profound malaise. There have been difficult times in the past – such as the 'empty chair' left by General de Gaulle in the mid-1960s, the rows over the British budget contribution in the early 1980s, and the struggles to ratify the Maastricht treaty and preserve the Exchange Rate Mechanism in the early 1990s.
  • The Austrian EU presidency and the future of the constitutional treaty
    Briefing note by Katinka Barysch, 24 January 2006

    Austrians heaved a sigh of relief when the UK presidency brokered a last-minute deal on the EU budget in December 2005. The Austrian government hoped that the agreement would free its hands to focus on more rewarding issues during its presidency.