• Opinion piece by Aurore Wanlin
    Open democracy, 15 March 2007

    On 25 March 2007, the European Union will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the treaty of Rome, the founding document of what became today's union of twenty-seven member-states.

  • Insight by Aurore Wanlin, 09 March 2007

    The Lisbon agenda embodies a paradox. Progress made by the member-states has been slow and patchy. The German presidency in the first half of 2007 is playing down Lisbon, fearing that the process has been discredited by the EU’s failure to meet its targets.

  • Opinion piece by Simon Tilford
    The International Herald Tribune, 09 March 2007

    It is seven years since the European Union launched its Lisbon agenda of economic reforms aimed at transforming the competitiveness of the European economy by 2010. Despite the pessimism, there has been much to cheer.

  • Insight by Hugo Brady, 09 February 2007

    “We are not the first who meaning the best have incurred the worst”, is a line from tragic heroine Cordelia in Shakespeare’s King Lear. But it could apply equally well to the architects of the EU’s failed constitutional treaty, also a tragic but unfinished saga.

  • Bulletin article by David Harrison, 01 February 2007

    The European Council, the EU’s supreme political authority, is malfunctioning. Europe’s most powerful leaders meet four times a year in the Council to review the EU’s work and and give political direction to the Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers.

  • Briefing note by Katinka Barysch, 03 January 2007

    On 1 January 2007, Germany took over the rotating EU presidency. Chancellor Angela Merkel has ambitious goals, most notably an EU agreement on what to do with the Union’s moribund constitutional treaty.

  • 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.

  • Bulletin article by Nick Butler , 02 October 2006

    When the first CER bulletin was published, almost a decade ago, the emphasis was firmly on the word ‘reform’. The EU had fulfilled its original purpose. Western Europe was an area of security, peace and, in the main, prosperity.