Centre for European Reform

In a recent analysis of EU policy-making, Zach Meyers, assistant director of the Centre for European Reform think-tank, says the European Commission, in its attempts to deal with crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change, “has become a more political body”.  This means, he argues, that the EU “has lost one of its strengths: having a technocratic lawmaking body focused on designing laws based on evidence and good practice, and which is less beholden to short-term politics than the European parliament and European Council”.

Sander Tordoir and Zach Meyers of the Centre for European Reform suggest more targeted support for areas of dominance like ASML's tech, a more pan-European approach to industrial policy and the creation of alliances with like-minded partners on chip supplychains.

Ian Bond, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, also told this site, “The paradox of Georgia is that it has the most pro-EU population in the former Soviet space, and has come further than any other Eastern European country in tackling corruption, but it now has one of the most anti-EU governments, controlled from behind the scenes by an oligarch who made his money in Russia in the 1990s.

Iain Begg sets out the problem lucidly in this article for the Centre for European Reform think-tank. Somehow, the EU must repay the debt incurred under the recovery fund. But will national governments be willing to pay more into the EU budget to do that? Will they approve the European Commission’s proposals for the EU to raise new forms of revenue on its own?