Thessaloniki ten years on: Injecting momentum into the enlargement process for the Western Balkans. CEPS Commentary, 16 May 2013.

Ten years have passed since the EU-Western Balkans summit was held in Thessaloniki in June 2003. In this new CEPS Commentary, CEPS Associate Senior Fellow Erwan Fouéré exhorts the EU to mark the occasion by reaffirming with greater determination the European perspective for the countries of the region in the hope of keeping the Balkan ghosts at bay.

Reform momentum and its impact on Greek growth. Bruegel Policy Contribution 2015/12, July 2015

Greece has an imperfect track-record of structural reform implementation. However, the poor growth outcome of the Greek programmes is also a consequence of the timing and composition of reforms, which were not optimally geared towards a speedy transition to a new growth model based on the private sector. While the main responsibility for this lies with the Greek authorities, international institutions share the responsibility for the poor growth-enhancing effect of reforms. In the current context, further structural reform efforts should be mainly targeted at supporting Greece's speedy return to solid growth rates. This is not only because poverty and unemployment have reached very high levels, but also for political economy reasons: reforms must quickly be seen to be working in order to buttress the consensus in favour of reform. Further efforts should be made to improve Greece’s business environment and to liberalise product markets, in addition to shifting taxation away from labour and towards consumption. Reforms to improve the quality of institutions should continue and are very much needed in the Greek setting, while taking into account that their demanding implementation might use up administrative capacity and their impact on growth will only be seen over long time horizons.

Georgia and the EU – maintaining the momentum. EPC Commentary, 1 July 2016

The Association Agreement (AA) between Georgia and the European Union (EU), signed in June 2014, will enter into force on 1 July 2016 after having been ratified by the parliaments of the 28 member states. The AA, with its Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA), foresees far-reaching political and economic integration with the EU by significantly deepening political and economic ties. Many provisions of the agreement have already begun to be implemented, and some are even beginning to give tangible results, such as the opening up of European markets to Georgian exports. Yet this benchmark moment was somehow overshadowed by the EU’s failure to extend visa free travel to Georgians, as had been expected, despite acknowledging that Georgia had fulfilled all the criteria that had been set. Whilst this was quickly explained by the EU as being only a temporary setback, based on reasons more related to other countries, such as Turkey and Ukraine, with which similar arrangements were being negotiated, it exposed the fragility of maintaining the necessary momentum in Georgia-EU relations.