In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Polish Law and Justice government began to work on creating two new funds in the state-owned Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego to finance “systemic aid” and additional military spending.
The European Union is debating a directive that would place a minimum effective corporate income tax (CIT) of 15 percent on large-scale company groups. The directive is expected to address tax challenges caused by digitalization.
Global markets cannot ignore the impact of losing agricultural supply from Ukraine and Russia, and European agricultural authorities are well aware of the risk.
Last July, the European Commission presented a proposal for a directive aimed at reforming the taxation of energy products and electricity. This proposal is part of the European Union’s (EU) efforts to reduce emissions and air pollution.
For Slovakia, in particular, as the extremely strong generation of “Husák’s children”* does not have a sufficient population replacement and will start to put a major strain on the health and pension systems in the coming decades.
Cooperating with Russia is no more a legal threat due to sanctions nor a mere corporate responsibility issue. It has become a much more fundamental issue of morality.
In the last weeks, we saw debates between the state and the municipalities, which discussed options to increase the resources for local development, but once again these evolved in the direction of centralized solutions.
The new conflict with the Russian regime, which is reviving its Soviet ambitions, has unified Europe and reminded the countries in the V4 region to realign its interest as well as economic solutions away from the East (Russia and China), and back to the Western Europe and the U.S. spheres of influence.
The second package to reduce the administrative burden on business in Slovakia has recently been approved. The first one was approved by the Parliament back in July 2020. It contained 115 measures. Back then, Ministry of Economy invited the public to send in further suggestions.
Preventing gold-plating is once again reinstated by the EU as an important measure to reduce barriers to the single market. The LFMI, in cooperation with other European think-tanks, presents a study “Gold-Plating: How to Identify and Avoid”.
