IME

At the end of May, the IME wrote that it was high time for a ramp-up of vaccine efforts in Bulgaria. By this, we meant that the vaccination process should be made the first and foremost governmental priority, and that as many tools as possible should be sought and employed to speed up the pace. The reason was obvious. The country was substantially far behind achieving the set target – vaccinating 70% of the adult population by the end of August.

Just a few weeks ago IME presented the main challenges to social protection faced by Bulgaria in the post-pandemic period. One of the key takeaways was that Bulgarian social policy is unfocused, ineffective and that it flat out fails to address poverty and inequality. While such issues are mainly solved through economic recovery, new jobs and wage growth, the role of social policy should be focused as much as possible on those most in need.

Join Atlas Network & Institute for Market Economics as we convene the 2021 Europe Liberty Forum Online! The 2021 Europe Liberty Forum Online—#EuropeLF21—is sponsored by Atlas Network and co-hosted with our partner organization in Bulgaria, Institute for Market Economics.

It is the summer of the second year of the COVID-19 panemic, and the European Union has generously opened its coffers to spend on post-pandemic recovery. Various governments of the EU are scrambling to put forward their best ideas to be funded by the new support scheme.

Bulgaria had its autumn of discontent. The mass protests proclaimed as a crusade against corruption and state capture have failed, while the prospects for reform of the oligarchic model from within are bleak at best. Hence, Bulgarians are looking at a winter of stagnation and political blockage.

The protests in Bulgaria have been going for almost two months now. As the government has failed to provide a meaningful alternative that could satisfy the demands of the demonstrators and thus solve the ongoing political crisis, let us examine the root causes that have driven it.

The wording of the drafted law does not provide sufficient guarantees for the exclusive application of the reduced rate for the declared taxable product supplies only. The proposal was made without an in-depth analysis by the National Revenue Agency.

The European Commission has announced its proposal for a recovery plan with a total budget of 750 billion euros, called Next Generation EU. It is based on the new Instrument for Recovery and Sustainability, with a proposed resource of EUR 560 billion.

Georgia is becoming, once again, a country to be watched by those of us who value liberty and the expansion of freedom and prosperity. Back in the fall and winter of 2019, there was little news about Georgia in the European and Central European media. There were a few political and economic developments – such […]

The fight against speculation is a traditional topic for politicians, which became especially popular during the state of emergency declared on March 13, 2020. These are all topics that affect many spheres of our lives and where human action seeks a solution but politicians have put up unnecessary barriers.