government

The fact that the Polish public TV is the biggest fake news factory in the country has been well known for some time. But the news about the Ministry of Justice becoming a national center of hate speech truly electrified Poland in July.

INESS organized an interesting public lecture during summer season. On August 6, 2019, Dr. Sean Gabb delivered a speech on Brexit and British strategy in Bratislava. Below you can read the outline of the lecture, accompanied by the video.

This month, Slovak economy unpleasantly surprised the Slovak government, when the newly released economic numbers showed a relatively significant drop in the growth rate of the economy compared with the earlier expectations.

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.

The last days of the Hungarian EP election campaign were characterized by an ever-intensifying anti-EU campaign on government-controlled and fringe disinformation portals. The Hungarian government seeks a strong mandate to represent its interest in the European Union

Several East European countries have been flirting with various forms of a “retailer tax”. A tax similar (but not equal) to VAT, or the sales tax. Its proclaimed aim is typically to “punish” international retail chains, which have been repeatedly blamed for problems of local farmers and local food and beverages industry.

Slovakia has managed to muster a constitutional majority passing a bill that would have a detrimental effect on the stability of the Slovak public finances in the long run. The measure is the constitutional limit of the retirement age now set at 64 for men and 63 for women (with two kids).

Bureaucratic burden is one of the most discussed and topical issues. No wonder! Whatever we may want or not, each one of us meets bureaucracy and administrative obstacles almost every day – in our jobs, businesses, or personal lives.

The official rhetoric of PiS government is “to make it possible to develop micro enterprises into small, small into medium, and medium into large or even into international champions”. However, the actual measures undertaken by the government were, in fact, to petrify the size of the companies.

The ruling politicians are unfortunately going in the opposite direction. While a person working for a minimum wage in 2015 paid 29% in taxes and levies, with the planned minimum wage, they will pay more than 40% next year.