IME

Last week’s events give some hope that the deep crisis which has gripped Venezuela’s economy in the past few years could end, or at least that the country may head towards economic recovery soon. It is, however, worthwhile to again review the dimensions and the causes of the crisis.

In order for the EU to prosper as a political, economic and social construct, it needs to be more competitive – including in the field of tax policy, and also to respect sovereignty and find unanimously agreed solutions on major issues.

In August, the Bulgarian government adopted a detailed action plan for joining ERM II and the Banking Union and there were some changes1 to the Bulgarian National Bank Act that also seem to lead in this general direction.

The presentation of the recently published ECB and EC reports was highly anticipated by Bulgarians, as the Bulgarian government\'s intention is to officially sign up for the eurozone waiting room by the end of June.

Like many other recent EU initiatives, the \"Link Tax\" targets online giants such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter in an attempt to share some of their colossal earnings with those they depend on. The good intentions will most likely lead to further encapsulation of the market, increasing barriers to entry.

TEP required member states to liberalize the power markets while RED set incentives to pick-up champions. The call for opinion on the ETD intends, presumably, to boost EU common market, while the RED and other policies are fragmenting it.

The story of Georgy Markov does not end here. Freedom lovers in Bulgaria are raising funds to publish his collected writing. In a letter to a friend sent immediately after he moved to London, Markov, for some reason stated: “If we look at things historically, the victor in all events, even if I die, will be me!”

Bulgaria’s accession to the Eurozone became again a part of public discourse, after the minister of finance of the first Borisov government gave up on it in 2012. This will without a doubt bring opportunities as well as threats for the economy, and more often than not opinions are polarized.

In 2007-2008, a single rate for income and profit tax of 10% (or “flat rate”) was introduced in Bulgaria. It is now apparent that this was only the last stage of a long-lasting tax reform which has been going on without interruption under numerous and fundamentally different governments.

Indeed, binding European funds with clear commitments from recipient countries sounds like a good idea. The big problem of a number of European policies and institutes is precisely the lack of an enforcement mechanisms, for example real penalties, which could help as a correction to a “misbehaving” member state.