The COVID-19 pandemic has not only limited our liberties, but also liberated creativity. Vilnius mayor and LFMI’s ex-president has allowed turning the whole city into a giant outdoor café and let businesses to exploit parks and squares for this purpose.
There are relatively strict and complex state aid rules applied across the developed world. In the EU database alone, there are no less than 33,000 such cases of reported or investigated state aid cases in the last 20 years.
The “you-know-what” brings out the worst in governments. It is one of the rare occasions that the military is used domestically. In some countries, it oversees the operation of strategic institutions and businesses.
To stop the coronavirus, most countries ceased almost all economic and social activities. As a first response to prevent an exponential growth of cases, this was probably justified. However, we will not be able to bear the costs of such a complete shutdown for a very long time.
Global trade growth has been in a slowdown for a decade. Contributing to the trend is a recent rise in protectionist policies, particularly in the United States. On top of it, Brexit, no matter in what form it takes, is projected to decrease trade volumes.
Today, about 100,000 Lithuanians take advantage of this opportunity to legally supplement their income—but starting a small business hasn’t always been so simple, and the threat of losing this tool that helps entrepreneurs like Ona succeed is very real.
The current Vice-President of the European Commission Mr. Timmermans openly says that a minimum wage of 60% of the median wage should be paid in the EU. In addition, the European Commission launched consultations with trade unions and employers on EU minimum wage rules in January.
The football business shows well how underestimating a well-performing and efficient player can bring other costs. The player may either simply leave for another team, or, if restricted with a contract – underperform to the level only required by the payment.
Mark Zuckeberg appeared before U.S. representatives, again. He sat alone at an austere table, being looked down on by the mighty politicians from their raised podium. Yet, the founder of Facebook yields more power than all those politicians combined.
Ukrainian government needs to take steps to reduce the possibility of hostile takeovers of property and should ensure transparent and lawful conduct of the judicial system and law enforcement agencies. It should also engage Ukrainian business associations in policy making.
