European Union

Although many agree that tax competition is a healthy and natural economic process that drives economies, the EC now sees tax harmonization as an essential factor for the functioning of the single market. Together with the CCCTB initiative, the ATA Directive could be seen as a first step toward this harmonisation.

Posting of workers plays an essential role in the internal market of the European Union. Drawing on the fundamental values of the free movement of persons and the free movement of services, it allows workers from one EU member state to work and carry out services in another member state on a temporary basis.

The project of the hockey Team Europe is a practical example of advantages coming form a flexible approach. First of all, it enables those European countries which have an established competitive team toenter on their own. At the same time, Team Europe is an amazing solution for countries with a handful of excellent hockey players, yet not enough to create a team which would be competitive on the international scene.

The past two weeks were chiefly engulfed by news concerning banks and regulations in relation to cryptocurrencies. Providing some balance on the other side of the spectre were positive pieces introducing Bitcoin´s newfound capacity to cover electricity bill payments in Japan or coffee-breaks in Russia.

Redistribution may be defined as the transfer of tax revenue to finance the state apparatus and maintain the government. One of the ways to calculate the size of redistribution of an economy is to calculate the ratio between tax revenue and the gross domestic product (GDP).

Some old Member States request the principle of “equal pay for equal work in the same place”, meaning that posted workers would not receive lower pay than the minimum wage of the recipient country. During the discussion accusations of social dumping by new Member States with regard to old Member States surfaced.

Some could argue that May is just taking time to avoid the implementation of the referendum’s result, which is quite unlikely, since after all “Brexit means Brexit”, and that she will not call for another referendum because UK citizens already expressed their will, and the government will respect it.

The government of Hungary spent the last few years informing the people with flyers, political surveys and billboards, that the “illegal immigration” is becoming a bigger problem day to day. During this process, lots of misleading or simply incorrect facts came out, not only abut the migrants, but even about the EU itself.

Backing out from NATO responsibilities could not only elicit the United States’ disapproval, but – among others – could also cause bad blood between Hungary and its presumed greatest ally, Poland, as it needs a strong NATO to countervail the power of Russia.

Despite the fact that the silly season has already started, several interesting occurrences took place. The most important news comes from the European Union, but also from Russia, Argentina and USA. Let us have a closer look.