government

At least 70% of all drafts of normative acts submitted to the Bulgarian Parliament are with no justification and assessment of expected costs and benefits. This leads to wrong policies, costly policy mistakes, burdened businesses, unpredictable business environment and opportunities for lobbyist to act in favour of specific groups.

In the most recent ranking of the World Economic forum, which compares the competitiveness of 140 countries around the world, Slovakia ranked 67th. Since we ranked 8 places higher the year before, the media presented this as positive news.

Riding on the wave of historical fear, Slovak government quickly came up with a new protective law. In general, it forbids any agricultural landowner to sell land (2000 square meters and more) freely to just anyone. The willing seller has to actively search for an interested local farmer and offer him the land for “usual” price first.

We are delighted to present you the second #4discussion, devoted to the topic of minimum wage and the welfare state. See what do Elina Lepomäki, Professor Tim Evans, Barbara Nowacka, and Richard Durana have to say on the topic and feel free to comment on that!

Polish politicians want to be influential and significant, yet refrain from taking any responsibility. (...) Polish politics has no teeth. It has no teeth because it lacks national perpetration. It consists in apparent governing and a tactical power game. It seems like indecisive ebbing and flowing, maybe this or maybe that.

On July 23, The Guardian published the results of a report by the “Tax Justice Network” (TJN). The title – “Wealth doesn’t trickle down – it just floods offshore” – cannot remain unnoticed by the reading public.

Individualism, lack of trust in the state structures as well as in any kind of administration or elite and their decisions were the cornerstone to the Polish success, and now they constitute the major obstacle for moving forward.

The invisible hand is actually made of billions of very visible hands which put the products into shopping carts, receive payments, or shake other hands to complete a contract. The market is efficient because it is the only real “social” element of the arrangement of the society.

The Lithuanian Parliament and the Ministry of Agriculture are destroying competition in the dairy sector through the egregious regulation of raw milk purchases. Much noise has been made over this new law, which places onerous restrictions on the dairy market of dubious constitutionality.

Under the European Charter of Local Self-Government, the internal administrative structure and the resources of the governments should correspond to the needs of the local population as well as ensure effective governance. However, statistical data shows the growth of municipal bureaucracy despite demographic decline.