In an escalation of tensions between Japan and South Korea, Tokyo has moved forward with regulations on exports of chemicals to Korean technological companies like Samsung. This move is seen as a political calculation, given recent disputes of trade and negotiations between the two Asian nations.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Chairman of the European Research Group on the House of Commons, claimed that this treaty would make the UK a vassal state. It is difficult to not agree with him. The last treaties that gave jurisdiction to foreign courts were the aforementioned 19th-century treaties with China.
On June 23, 2016, the UK voted to leave the EU. If Czechs and Slovaks were able to separate an entire country, Czechoslovakia, in six months, surely Whitehall and Berlaymont can find a way to separate one EU member state sooner than in six years.
We commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Pact armies’ invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, an event that in many respects showed to the whole world the desperation of people struggling for self-determination under totalitarian regimes.
I’m writing this article from the point of view of a Czech libertarian. It’s meant for foreigners, not necessarily libertarians, to get a better grasp of Czech politics than what they can get from their usual sources of information.
While the Member States still have at least the sole jurisdiction in criminal matters, they maintain a good deal of sovereignty. Once an EU “federal” criminal framework begins to take root, it won’t take long before we will all be committing three EU felonies a day.
Fear that people will not buy new flats because they will have higher interest rates. If the people do not invest more, the prices of these assets will stagnate or fall. Whoever buys in times of a loose monetary policy, wins. When screws begin to tighten, the winner is the one who sells first.
At the end of the day, efforts to protect domestic businesses are always paid by the consumers. Nothing is free, the same is true also for protectionism. It leads to higher prices and worse quality of services that protected businesses offer.
Populist, xenophobic, and eurosceptic movements are raising across the Old Continent. There is at least one far-right party for each European country. Some of these are big and significant, while others are not. So what are these parties and where are they?
In the Czech Republic, we have gone through four decades of central planning of prices of practically everything. And the result? Either the price has been set too high and surpluses have been accumulated, or too low, and the television in the evening informed the audience about shortages of underwear and toilet paper.
