As EU leaders gear up for a series of key meetings this week, Open Europe has published a new briefing looking at the short-term options available to the eurozone for tackling the most immediate crisis. Open Europe argues that Greece should default on 60% of its debt through a managed restructuring, and that the planned second Greek bailout should be scrapped altogether, replaced by a limited tran...

Open Europe yesterday published a briefing note arguing that, although the ECB is unlikely to start acting as the eurozone's lender of last resort, it is already heavily intervening in markets. Open Europe estimates that, through its government bond buying and liquidity provision to banks, the ECB’s exposure to weaker eurozone economies has now reached €705bn, up from €444bn i...

The German government believes Britain should be part of a Europe-wide tax on financial transactions, the proceeds of which could help prop up the single currency. That’s the first silliness: there will be no extra revenue. The second is that the direct revenue, before the losses from other taxes as the economy shrinks, would be,

Open Europe has today published a collection of promises that the EU elite made to their citizens from the birth of the euro up to the recent crisis entitled, “They said it: how the EU elite got it wrong on the euro”. Politicians, central bankers and opinion formers warned citizens that without the euro their countries would suffer economically, unemployment would rise and growth would...

Open Europe has instead called for Europe’s banking system to be “fundamentally recapitalised” in a move that could cost as much as €372bn. Ahead of crucial G20 talks this weekend, the London-based think tank has called for leaders to ditch its plans to boost the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and push instead for a

In a briefing note for Open Europe, Anthony Browne, former Director of Policy Exchange, and Mats Persson, Director of Open Europe, argue that in the wake of the euro crisis the UK should position itself as the national champion of “European localism”, a new long-term strategy that is capable of winning support across the political spectrum in the UK, and from governments and parliament...

Open Europe’s report on the EU’s AIFM Directive continues to receive coverage. The report, published yesterday, found that the hedge fund and private equity industry contributed €9 billion in tax revenues to EU governments in 2008, and that the proposed Directive would cost EU-based firms in the two industries between €1.

Neil O'Brien is to be the new director of Policy Exchange. Currently the 29 year-old is the director of Open Europe, the leading think-tank working on liberal reforms of the European Union. Open Europe has a reputation as the best connected, least head-banging, media-savvy euro-sceptic group. They were behind the I Want a Referendum campaign. Neil launched Open Europe in 2005 with a heavyweight bo...

Dropping into my inbox this week was an invite to attend an Open Europe event called ‘EU communication policy: biased propaganda?’. A bit rich! Despite styling themselves as an ‘independent think tank’, Open Europe consistently produces what can only be described as biased propaganda. By misleading and using selective quoting Open Europe, with a helping hand from the media, very successful...

I see that the Irish Government's end-of-year returns have shown a massive tax revenue shortfall of €8.13 billion. Publishing the much worse-than-anticipated figures today, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan predicated the economy would shrink by a further four per cent this year and said that “decisive and sustained” Government action was urgently required. The revenue s...