Giles Merritt: ‘Reluctant leaders of Europe’
Founder of Friends of Europe think-tank talks about German leadership and shares his take on Euroscepticism in Britain.
The Germans, because of their history, are very reluctant to set themselves up as the leaders of Europe.
Giles Merritt is the secretary general of the Brussels-based think-tank Friends of Europe, which he founded in 1999.
Friends of Europe covers and debates non-defence EU topics at the level of policymakers, stakeholders and researchers.
Merritt is also the co-founder and director of Security and Defence Agenda (SDA), which was started in 2002 and is Friends of Europe’s sister think-tank that is committed to security and defence issues.
Merritt founded Forum Europe in 1989, and from 1968-1983 he was a Financial Times correspondent reporting from London, Paris, Belfast, Dublin, and Brussels.
Merritt continues to write columns about EU issues for various international publications.
He spoke to Empire in Brussels about the European project, and why Germany is not really leading, as well as his take on Euroscepticism in Britain.
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