On October 9, 2012 INESS with support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and the National Union of Employers organized international conference under the title Cutting Deficits, which was a continuation of INESS’ annual traditional conference devoted to public finances. Two panels with seven speakers from four European countries took place in a Park Inn Danube hotel in Bratislava. The speakers answered in various ways the main question of the conference – Is it possible…

Are you catching up all the tools, actions and countermeasures designed to save the eurozone from a break-up? Let’s count them together. Bilateral loans to Greece, IMF loans, SMP, EFSM, EFSF, LTRO, Sixpack, Fiscal Pact, ESM, OMT… It’s difficult to find a politician, not to say an ordinary citizen, who understands all these abbreviations. And still, these letters mean hundreds of billions of euro. Each of these tools represents also a set of rules, which…

Unexpected news came from Scandinavia last week. Sweden will have lower corporate tax rate than Slovakia! Last Thursday Swedish government announced its intention to lower tax rate from 26,3% to 22% in order to „strengthen climate for investments and growth“ in the country. Well,  even Scandinavian socialism is not what it used to be. Truly shocking news from Southern Europe: Greece will need a third bailout.  According to the country’s representative in the negotiations of…

National security has become a pretext for the introduction of protectionism in international trade. The United States use this policy to protect its market. It means a serious restriction of access to U.S. market for traders from abroad. The European Union expressed concern over this situation and warns against the creating of barriers to international trade. “Cannot justify restrictions on trade and investment based on national security if they are in fact protectionist and serve…

While the “green” countries like Austria or Switzerland are slowly surrendering the dream to reach the carbon dioxide limits set by the Kyoto Protocol, one of the few countries, which will probably reach them, is USA. Those United States, which refused to ratify Kyoto and were strongly criticized by the western world community for this decision. This situation would be unimaginable just a few years ago. How is such rapid change possible and how is…