From the Centre for European Reform, this is the CEO podcast.

It is a critical moment. If we do not act with urgency, we would then severely undermine the liberal order.

Brexit means Brexit, and we're going to make a success of it.

The wind is back in Europe's sales.

We have now a window of opportunity, but it will not stay open forever.

Hello, my name is Sophia Beshe. I'm a research fellow at the Center for European Reform.

Welcome to the CI Interview Podcast. This is a yearly podcast where we review the year that has passed and look toward the next year and what it might bring.

This is the third year in a row that we're doing this podcast. It tends to be your favorite, not just with me, but also with our audience. I really look forward to it.

Today I'm with Charles Grant, who's the director of the CEO, John Springford, who's our deputy

director and Ian Bond, our director of foreign policy.

We'll start right away by looking at the year 2018 and some of the work that the CR has

done.

What I want to do in my first question is look at some of the most important CR publications of the work that the CR has done. What I want to do in my first question is look

as some of the most important CR publications of the year. Charles, you've published several

pieces on Macron's reform proposals and his standing in Europe this year and you were one of the

very first, I think, to diagnose his isolation in Europe. Yes, I mean, Macron's probably the only

European leader with a lot of ideas

about how to reshape the EU. Some of these ideas are traditional French ideas revived,

such as the idea of a core Europe or concentric circles around that core with France at the heart of the

core and the Eurozone at the heart of the core. Others were new ideas, in particular for Eurozone reform.

He had a lot of ideas on how to create elements of a transfer union to put the Eurozone on a more

stable basis. He thought that the new German government would help him. But Merkel turned out to be

...