Who needs the CER? by Charles Grant
My colleagues and I are often asked what Brexit means for the Centre for European Reform – and sometimes whether the CER is needed at all once Britain leaves the EU. The short answer is that we are here to stay. We opened our office in London in January 1998 and we plan to keep going for at least another 22 years. The longer answer is that, ever since our foundation, we have focused on two missions. The first is to come up with policies and ideas that can help to make the EU a more effective and successful organisation. The second is to suggest ways of improving the quality of Britain’s relationship with the EU. Both missions are at least as important post-Brexit as before the UK’s departure, and in some ways even more so. On the first mission, we seek to achieve an EU that is open, outward-looking, influential and prosperous, with close ties to neighbours and allies, and the ability to stand up to adversaries. Those who are on our mailing list or familiar with our website will be aware that the lion’s share of our work has nothing to do with Brexit. For example, of the 11 longer papers that we published in 2019 (which we call policy briefs or essays) only one was on Brexit – though plenty of our shorter ‘insights’ covered that subject. Our most downloaded policy brief of the year, ‘Schengen reloaded’, by Raoul Ueberecken, set out a reform agenda for a policy area with which
Britain has always had a distant relationship. Our second most downloaded paper, by our Berlinbased chief economist Christian Odendahl and deputy director John Springford, analysed the growing divergence between Europe’s regions, and is part of a series on the future of the European economy. We have always been and will remain a pro-EU think-tank. But we are unsparing in our criticism when the performance of the EU and its memberstates falls short. One of the EU’s weaknesses is that it struggles to respond rapidly to changing circumstances (we share French President Emmanuel Macron’s frustration with what he terms its immobilisme). The EU is currently faced with numerous challenges, such as the growing geopolitical and economic heft of China, the social and economic consequences of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the unbridled power of the big tech companies and the threat to European values from both strongman leaders outside the EU (including US President Donald Trump) and populist forces within. Can the EU respond promptly to such challenges, and can