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
  • What is wrong with Lisbon?
    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.
  • Get with it, Europe
    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.
  • We need a new pro-Europeanism
    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.
  • Time to shake up the European Council
    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.
  • What to expect from the German presidency
    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.
  • 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.

  • Global challenges will drive European reform
    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.
  • 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.