Economy

In the beginning of 2019, the governmental Institute of Financial Policy (IFP) came with the issue of tax on sugar. However, we believe that in this case once again, the tax discussion precedes the discussion about the core problem - obesity. Therefore, INESS prepared a new publication entitled \"Bitter Tax on Sugar\".

Thirty years later, public policies and political institutions of the former socialist economies do not equally support economic freedom, just as they do not observe the same level of international trade, foreign direct investment, and income.

The fate of the “mobility package” is, however, far from sealed – the final decision on it will be taken not by the current, but the next composition of the European parliament, which may turn out to be more welcoming towards competition.

Some people claim that the main reason why gold became money was that women liked it. Others claim that it is the faith that makes us use a certain good as money. By that logic, even water could become money just by virtue of us having faith in it.

Several East European countries have been flirting with various forms of a “retailer tax”. A tax similar (but not equal) to VAT, or the sales tax. Its proclaimed aim is typically to “punish” international retail chains, which have been repeatedly blamed for problems of local farmers and local food and beverages industry.

Internet governance relies on multistakeholderism – a distributed policy making model based on voluntary cooperation of key actors, usually identified as states, business and civil society, operating “in their respective roles” (WSIS 2005) through “rough consensus and running code” .

Despite the banking industry’s excellent level of cybersecurity protections for itself, the UK public, media and Parliament appear unaware of the security weaknesses in the UK’s payments architecture which has encouraged a new push button fraud trend.

Ukraine has been going through ambitious structural reforms aimed to strengthen its democratic institutions and human rights protection, impose rule of law, and develop modern market-oriented economy. Customs reform is among key reforms in Ukrainian policy agenda in 2019.

According to the Ukrstat, Ukraine exported USD 20.2 bn to the EU, surpassing the previous peak registered in 2008, i.e. before the hardships of two economic crises and the occupation of the part of Ukraine’s territory.

Under EU legislation, Member States are required to abolish any legal provisions contrary to the principle of equal treatment and have to introduce measures that would facilitate getting legal remedies in cases of alleged violations of equal treatment.