Low demand and unfavorable political situation are the major obstacles for the development of industrial enterprises in Ukraine as of early 2015. Such were the results of the quarterly business survey in which Ukrainian businesses assessed the 4th quarter of 2014 conducted by the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting.
The Greeks do not understand the imperative need for the reforms. Nor are they ready to reform. With the external pressure of the EU and other international institutions being the only reason to institute reforms, it is hard to expect any breakthrough. And this is the key problem.
From 2012 to 2014 Lithuania increased its minimum monthly wage by almost one third (from 800 Litas in 2012 to 1,035 Litas in 2014). There are suggestions to increase the minimum wage in 2015 even more the supporters of the idea claim that companies would adapt. But is it all that simple? According to the survey conducted by LFMI, minimum wage increases come at a cost and they eventually bring several negative consequences.
People are either cannibals or creators. The fundamental difference between the two is how in their opinion the world works. What to do when you’re hungry – eat a neighbour or come up with a solution to growing vegetables in the middle of winter? Is the world a “zero-sum game” in which one can prosper only if others suffer? Yes would be the answer of a cannibal.
“Nations, just like women, experience brief moments of intoxication. But those moments pass soon enough.”. Adam Michnik talks to Leszek Jażdżewski, editor-in-chief of Polish liberal quarterly magazine Liberté!, about how a brief moment of European weakness will affect Russia in the end and what can go wrong in the meantime.
Free Market Road Show 2015 has visited Bratislava, Slovakia on April 14, 2015. The event organized by INESS in cooperation with Austrian Economics Center was a part of the unique conference tour that visits 36 cities around Europe and Caucasus from April till May.
The 2015 Free Market Road Show® in Lubljana brought together leading businessmen, scholars, opinion makers, public policy experts, elected officials, diplomats, students, and other interested parties from across Europe and the world to discuss the kind of Europe its citizens want to develop.
The presidential project of the fiscal ordinance was supposed to improve this complex situation. The uncertainties in regulations were supposed to be interpreted in favour of the taxpayers. In other words, the responsibility for legal errors (bungles) would lie on the national state and not on physical persons.
While creating the Energy Union, the EU should do its best to employ such mechanisms that would limit the regulatory power over the prices of sources and energy of individual states on the national level as much as possible. Such a solution applied to this specific market would – at least to some extent – secure a proper space for market principles and energy prices reflecting incomes of the citizens of a respective state.
The look back at 2014 will include mainly good news. While comparing to traditional benchmark – the average performance of the European Union – the Czech GDP growth rate was significantly higher than the growth rate of the EU. The Czech economy has had a faster growth than the EU in five quarters in a row.
