There is a significant, 7% decrease in the ratio of voters who support the continuation of the present Fidesz government, while the ratio of those who support Jobbik (the radical right party) or a coalition of the leftist, liberal parties has increased – shows the public opinion study by Republikon Institute in November 2016.
Bulgaria’s population is aging and shrinking. Labor Market demands are shifting quickly from low skill to high skill. Twenty percent of Bulgaria’s youth are NEEDS (not in employment or education). Almost 50% of Roma in the country have primary or lower education.
The companies are fighting for survival in everyday competition against other companies. Up until that, everything is fine. It stops being fine when authorities interrupt this process. Their decisions and insensitive approach – made without consideration for economic consequences – can be fatal for companies.
To know how to fight for freedom is important. But it is also important to know how to preserve this freedom. And a look into our recent past unveils that we lost it right in the years 1948 and 1968, although in the second case, we lost more or less only the hope for freedom. And unfortunately, we may lose it again.
The Slovak Ministry of Finance sent the entrepreneurs a special package this week. It contains as many as seven (!) new tax law amendments. The extraordinary content of the tax package is the reason for red alert among entrepreneurs. This attitude is the result of previous negative experiences.
In the times of Polish People’s Republic, when religion and all other key aspects of Polish identity were being actively supressed, the interests of the Catholic Church in Poland as an institution and the interests of raison d’etat were aligned to a great extent. Today it is not the case.
Let us remind you that many posts at the state-owned enterprises require an access to classified information. This means that in order to be able to work there one must acquire the so-called “confirmation of security” issued by Internal Security Agency (ABW) or – in the case of military institutions – Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW).
In 2015, the USAID Leadership in Economic Governance (LEV) Program conducted a large-scale survey of small and medium enterprises (Annual Business Climate Assessment in Ukraine). One of the features of this survey is that entrepreneurs themselves identify obstacles to doing business and reforms they expect from the state.
In late 2015 – early 2016, when the ABCA survey was conducted, Ukrainian small and medium businesses mostly assessed business climate in the country as neutral or negative. Only 6% of the polled SMEs believed that business climate was favorable.
Recently, the operations of the newspaper Népszabadság in Hungary were suspended. So what’s the big deal? It was a left to centre newspaper anyway, you will read some other newspaper instead. It generated giant losses, and its numbers have plummeted – you will hear, so the private owners were right to kill it off.
