In some countries (including Poland) parental leave can be fully flexibly divided between both parents. This sounds great, but in reality reinforces gender inequality. Therefore, the Commission has recently proposed the parental leave to become an individual right for mothers and fathers without a transfer of the four months to the other parent.
The government in Warsaw is considered to be one of the most conservative in the EU. In the country with practically no regulations for LGBT+ community, Law and Justice – the ruling party – manages to find the way to limit their rights even further.
Last Tuesday, the minister said in the parliament that UNESCO “illegally” added the Polish Białowieża primeval forest to the World Heritage list (sic!). Luckily, Polish activists and the friends of the Białowieża forest from all over the world are still fighting.
This should be the first commandment of every regulator. Or at the very least, forbidding should not be their first step. All over the world, many governments which have imposed a ban on sharing economy do not respect this rule. They shoot first and ask questions later.
We love our country — it’s the best country in the world — but the idea of an overseeing government that isn’t ours makes us feel like there’s something infringing on our Americanness. How does something like that happen, what are we scared of, and how can you reach across the divide if it starts happening in your country?
On June 20, 2017, the Lithuanian Free Market Institute organizes an international conference titled “Paternalist Policies and Food Regulation: Objectives and Consequences”, aimed at initiating a series of public debates on the growing trends of state paternalism.
Why do conditions for doing business and entrepreneurship keep deteriorating when politicians are trying to convince us on a daily basis that they want to improve them instead? No deeds follow their words. Although the government pretends to listen to our concerns, they do not usually take them into account.
This year the Tax Freedom Day comes five days later; regrettably, government spending surpasses economic growth and Lithuanian taxpayers should work more and more just to pay taxes. To compare, Estonia celebrated on May 7, the United States on April 23, and Australia on April 13.
When Ukrainian SMEs are given a choice between two options – to obtain certain benefits for their sector from the government or to make sure that the government creates equal conditions for all enterprises – they choose the latter. This tendency manifested itself in the results of the national “Annual Business Climate Assessment” survey in Ukraine.
Lithuanians seem to have gotten used to governmental promises just as to the changing seasons. The only difference is that spring is bound to come eventually, while the government fails to deliver.
