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The CER at 25: Ahead of its times by Heather Grabbe
Over 25 years, Charles Grant has often been asked “What are think-tanks for?” His answer has usually been: “Thinking long term.” The CER excelled from the very beginning at that kind of thinking, especially spotting emerging trends in the EU before others noticed them. One of the first events of the embryonic thinktank, in 1997, was a seminar on the economics of EU enlargement, at a point when few journalists, researchers or civil servants had paid much attention to the prospect of new members changing the Union.
PHOTO: (L to R) Charles Clarke, Heather Grabbe and António Vitorino Launch of 'Saving Schengen', Brussels, January 2012
The CER was out in front on enlargement, publishing in 2001 some of the first estimates of the economic impact on the EU and on Central Europe, and in 2004 a political forecast of how the new members might behave once inside the club. It was one of the first think-tanks to argue for the EU to start negotiations with Turkey, in order to empower domestic reformers – only to see those hopes dashed as France and Cyprus undermined the process, and then Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stalled it with his drive towards authoritarianism. Another good spot was the rising importance of justice, liberty and security in European integration. The CER hosted one of the first events with António Vitorino, the first-ever commissioner for justice and home affairs (JHA), in 2000. Vitorino opened the breakfast meeting in Brussels by pointing to his relatively small feet and quipping: “I have no choice but to make petits pas, as Monnet advised us, in this controversial new domain.” All that changed a
year later, when the September 11th terrorist attacks on the US turbo-charged EU-level action on internal security, police and judicial co-operation. This included the creation of the common arrest warrant and many other measures that the CER analysed in its major report on the European response to 9/11. One of Vitorino’s notable successors was Britain’s last commissioner, Julian King. The CER hosted a stock-taking retrospective for King in 2019, at which he surveyed the vast range of the portfolio he had expanded, especially on counter-terrorism, border control and cyber-security. Little noticed at home, Britain had been one of the most forwardleaning member-states on JHA. Germany, by contrast, was sometimes the backmarker, more preoccupied with privacy and data protection. JHA was the subject of an innovative method pioneered by the CER, to get EU officials in sensitive domains to talk to one another and forge an ésprit de corps across their institutional siloes. For several years, the CER organised the ‘Amato Group’, a series of private gatherings of senior officials responsible for internal security, migration, justice and related issues, like corruption and rule of law. These were chaired by Giuliano Amato – the éminence grise who had served as Italy’s prime minister, interior minister