Economy

Polish economic policy should aim to increase the country’s resilience and strengthen economic foundations. The safety margin, in the form of ensuring the appropriate fiscal space, must be maintained not only because of tensions in the world economy, but also in terms ofpossibly less sharp, cyclical slowdown.

The cost of payment backlogs is not limited to the cost of maintaining the liquidity of the company. In addition to the interest on bank loans, one should also take into account all the additional costs associated with the monitoring of payments from contractors, chasing late payments, and growing risks caused by the delays.

Law and Justice seems to be going for neither the Anglo-Saxon, nor the Scandinavian solutions, nor any other type known from the Western market economies, but it instead, step by step, brings Poland back to the socialist system, enabling at the same time the emergence of a lobbying paradise.

Public tenders are beneficial to the taxpayers who actually pay for them. According to the Public Procurement Office of Lithuania, in 2015, over 300 million euro were spent without a competitive procurement procedure. This means that taxpayers have most likely overpaid in the majority of cases.

Alcohol policies differ greatly by states. Among other things, the AVMSD sets minimum standards for television advertising, although Member States are given the possibility to apply stricter rules, as television is generally clearly confined to the territory of one state.

Possibility to set statutory VAT rate below 15% for a wider set of different goods and services may lead to lower effective VAT rates in various Member States. Therefore, countries, which have fewer exemptions and/or reduced rates, may maintain the same principles of taxation but lower their standard VAT rate.

In a way, digitization is old hat. E-mails turned 45 on September 30, 2016. In 1997, 4.1m Germans were online; today the figure is 58m. Growing up in today\'s world, it is impossible to imagine being without a smartphone. But not having a landline phone or not owning a car? No problem.

Unfortunately, in 2016, the populist Law and Justice government decided to reverse the reform – the pseudo-economic rationale was the infamous lump of labor fallacy. They wrongly claimed that lowering the retirement age would be a perfect tool to fight youth unemployment – retiring seniors would (in their opinion) leave their jobs for young Poles.

The extremely low, 10%-level of female MPs in the Hungarian parliament, and the lack of inequality issues in the political agenda makes it quite relevant to try better know and understand the problems concerning men and women in Hungary as perceived by the voters and the possible social-demographic factors behind them.

After decades of optimism we should start imagining Europe without the EU. If we do not fix that project and make it successful, it may turn out to be mortal. The EU does not need a major structural overhaul or another treaty change. It needs a change of attitudes.