INESS released an English version of The 2014 Universe of Public Expenditures, a poster with a graphical representation of all public expenditures financed by taxes and contributions. It enables one to understand the relationships among the individual items of public administration.
Ukraine shows that, when pressure is applied, Potemkin institutions reveal themselves for what they really are. The lessons for countries in the neighborhood, most of all Russia, should be apparent, as, although there are major differences between Ukraine and its anxious neighbor, at the most fundamental levels, the institutional stagnation is the same.
Entrepreneurs in Slovakia have not the very best reputation. In media they usually appear in connection with negative matters, so that the publicity wrongly divides them just into two categories: those who stole money during the privatization and those who are stealing today by public procurement.
Continual restriction of economic and civil liberties may have fatal consequences. Even though we can freely choose to live in an unfree society, we have to be aware of the price we will eventually pay for it.
On June 27, 2014, Petro Poroshenko, newly elected President of Ukraine, will sign the economic part of the Association Agreement with the EU, political part of which was signed in March 2014. Same day Georgia and Moldova will also sign the Association Agreements with the EU.
In March, Russia annexed Crimea, a peninsula with population of 2.4 m in the south of Ukraine, after it failed to divert Ukraine from the course for European integration. The escalation in Donbas could have been a first step of a large scale Russian intervention into the mainland Ukraine.
In Ukraine, the main channel of the impact of remittances on GDP is consumption. The scope of impact depends on two factors – the marginal propensity to save and the propensity to purchase imported goods and services.
‘Hungary and the European Union after the European parliamentary elections’, a conference organized by Republikon Foundation with the support of Friedrich Naumann Foundation, was held on June 11, 2014 in Budapest. The event was part of the Foundation’s project ‘Lessons learned from EP elections 2014’.
During the global financial crisis, public pensions in Lithuania were cut to reduce further strain on the government budget. The Lithuanian government is now considering backpaying these pensions.
The Tax Freedom Day has arrived! The last Tuesday was the first day when people have started to earn on their own and not for the State and needs of public finances.
