Britain not SwissSaving the euroGermany’s own goal
  • Britain should not go Swiss
    Insight by John Springford, 10 July 2012
    Britain should not go Swiss
  • Needed: A Franco-German concordat
    Insight by Charles Grant, 27 June 2012
    Franco-German discord
  • Germany's own goal: Why Berlin's sense of invulnerability will be its undoing
    Insight by Simon Tilford, 22 June 2012
    Germany’s own goal
  • Poland's bold new foreign policy
    Insight by Charles Grant, 17 January 2008

    As far as the rest of Europe was concerned, the worst thing about Poland’s Law and Justice government, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski (and supported by his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski), was its foreign policy. The twins’ attitude towards Russia, Germany and – sometimes – the EU was confrontational.
  • Politics, Sarkozy and the euro
    Bulletin article by Philip Whyte, 03 December 2007

    Not long after its launch, the euro was famously dismissed by a disgruntled currency trader as a “toilet currency”. How things have changed. Since 2003, the euro’s external value has soared, particularly against the US dollar.
  • Could the euro rule supreme? It's not worth it
    Opinion piece by Simon Tilford
    Financial Times, 27 November 2007

    In the 1970s, John Connally, President Richard Nixon's treasury secretary, famously quipped to a group of visiting Europeans that "the dollar may be our currency, but it's your problem".
  • Sarkonomics – a user’s guide
    Insight by Philip Whyte, 08 November 2007

    President Sarkozy is frequently portrayed in France and elsewhere as an “economic liberal”. This is a mistake. He is undoubtedly an economic reformer prepared to take on the privileges of labour market “insiders”; but he retains a French dirigiste’s belief in an active role for the state in economic development.
  • Poland's position
    Opinion piece by Katinka Barysch
    The Guardian, 23 October 2007

    The departure of one half of the Kaczynski twins is good news for Poland's economy and for EU harmony. But those hoping for radical change may be disappointed.
  • What impact will the EU reform treaty have?
    Opinion piece by Hugo Brady
    Financial Times, 17 October 2007

    The European Union’s 27 member states expect to approve a ”reform treaty” in Lisbon on Friday, whose birth pangs have caused the bloc perhaps more distress than any episode in its 50-year history.
  • Sarkozy on America and the world
    Insight by Tomas Valasek, 29 August 2007

    In his first 100 days in the office, Nicolas Sarkozy turned France’s domestic political scene on its head. He trounced and marginalised the far-right National Front in the May presidential elections.
  • Poland’s poll and the EU treaty
    Insight by Katinka Barysch, 24 August 2007

    Poland’s early election may coincide with the last days of talks on the new EU Reform Treaty. Although the Kaczynskis are unlikely to reopen a deal agreed in June on the treaty's content, last minute political posturing for a home audience could delay the text being signed off.