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
  • EU politics after the elections
    Insight by Hugo Brady, 10 June 2009

    EU policies were not the issue that guided most voters in last week’s elections to the European Parliament. The economic crisis and job safety were uppermost in people’s minds.
  • Guest column: Spain's muted EU voice
    Opinion piece by Charles Grant
    Financial Times, 09 June 2009

    There are several paradoxes about Spain’s global role. Its business leaders have built up many world-beating companies, but its politicians tend to be parochial.
  • Why the European elections matter
    Insight by Hugo Brady, 29 May 2009

    Between June 4th and June 7th, Europeans will cast their votes to elect a new European Parliament (EP). Recent opinion polls indicate that they will do so without much enthusiasm.
  • Making a success of the EAS
    Insight by Charles Grant, 21 May 2009

    If the Irish people vote yes to the Lisbon treaty at the second attempt, and the Czechs, Germans and Poles also ratify, the EU will set up an ‘external action service’ or EAS. This new institution promises to make the Union’s common foreign and security policy more effective.
  • Por qué pesa poco España?
    Opinion piece by Charles Grant
    ABC.es, 08 May 2009

    El papel de España en la UE encierra una extraña paradoja. Aunque se trata de uno de los Estados miembros más europeísta, es el que menos influencia tiene de los seis países más grandes. Pero esto no siempre ha sido así.
  • The French, the European Commission and the Tories
    Insight by Charles Grant, 29 January 2009

    One Frenchman, Jean Monnet, invented the European Commission, and another, Jacques Delors, was its greatest president. Yet the French are increasingly hostile to this Brussels institution.
  • What the summit says about the EU
    Insight by Katinka Barysch, 16 December 2008

    The EU summit on December 10th-11th 2008 was a success in so far as EU leaders managed to agree on all major agenda items. The fact that there was a lot of bitter wrangling and a big dose of compromise was only to be expected against the backdrop of a rapidly worsening European economy.
  • Defending European defence in partnership with NATO, strengthening the EU's military muscle is the right idea
    Opinion piece by Tomas Valasek
    The Wall Street Journal, 09 December 2008

    Ten years ago in St. Malo, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac launched the European security and defence policy, or ESDP. They had the right idea: The European Union needs a defence arm if it is to play a global role, and with the demand for peacekeepers rising, ESDP could give a needed boost to the efforts of NATO and the United Nations. Or at least that was the theory.