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.
The EC’s decision to start an in-depth investigation into Poland’s tax on the retail sector is undoubtedly right as this additional tax imposed on large stores is unjustified and harmful. It should be up to a consumer’s individual choice where to go shopping.
Although Mateusz Morawiecki (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development) often says that his plan would be based on the idea of both governmental and private saving and investing, the programme itself shows quite the opposite: the government just wants to spend money immediately on certain investments and branches.
Economic slowdowns are always challenging for the state authorities. Expenditure cuts and search for new sources of income often lead to imperfect policy changes. In 2012, KGHM became a victim of a government’s hunt. As a result, the company was forced to pay a new silver and copper extraction tax.
Taking a loan in a foreign currency puts both borrowers and banks at risk. At the time of signing the contract, both providers and takers neglected the possible weakening of Polish zloty, believing in its further strengthening. Besides the fact that one can easily learn about it from various sources, the majority of borrowers knew that such a danger exists.
Paradoxically, the army that is considered to be the founder of democracy has always been a great dilemma for the EU during the admission procedure, which is the reason behind the union’s support for Erdogan’s attempts to significantly reduce the political influence of the armed forces
It is not only mutual military support and the common market that unites EU and NATO Members States. Our cooperation is and has to be based on common values – democracy and the rule of law. Barack Obama very clearly made Polish politicians aware of this fact during the press conference at the NATO summit.
As for the parliamentary elections, I felt much more uncertain. Like many others, I took the possibility of a coalition around the Law and Justice Party into account. In this variant, the president’s office in the hands of Komorowski became strategically important to prevent various anti-reforms (e.g. lowering the retirement age). I also did not rule out a weak coalition around the Civic Platform.
