economy

The Slovak pension, education, and health systems and services should not depend on the government holding power at any given time. Instead, a fundamental political consensus is required. Better than calls from abroad for Slovakia to behave more rationally, the nation itself must come to its senses.

The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, was not only the beginning of the reunification of the Germans, it was also one of several events that in the months and years to come would have more than 100 million people, including Estonians, successfully turn their back to communism.

Wage debates are always heated, no matter if it is an employee asking their boss for a rise, or union negotiations. Anyway, in the past year or two, the wage question became one of the leading topics of public debate in Slovakia.

Prime Minister Jüri Ratas (Centre) has said that he does not have any red lines or issues on which it\'s not possible to compromise. The fact that it\'s possible to compromise on truly anything, including a lack of political responsibility, is confirmed by the actions of the current government on a weekly basis.

We are pleased to present the eleventh issue of 4liberty.eu Review, titled “Transformative Transformation? 30 Years of Change in CEE”. We trust that it may tact as not only a reason for reminiscing about the past, but also a pretext for further challenging ourselvs to fight for a brighter future.

After thirty years since the fall of Communism in Europe, Ukraine remains a country with unfinished institutional reforms and significant barriers for business and trade. The country gained independence when the Soviet Union dissolved two years later – in 1991.

In Slovakia, the minimum wage has become a political evergreen of every autumn. However, its growth has been rapidly increasing in recent years. Moreover, the former Slovak prime minister has proposed a new law, which will set the minimum wage at 60% of an average wage of the previous year.

Against the background of the forthcoming crisis and problems in the leading economies in the Euro area such as Germany and Italy, we find an unexpected example of a booming economy in the Iberian Peninsula – Portugal.

Today´s world is a product of values, stances, and deeds of previous generations. Those were formed by political institutions, economies, and social relations. These factors guided the world´s modus operandi. But this world is disappearing.

This month, Slovak economy unpleasantly surprised the Slovak government, when the newly released economic numbers showed a relatively significant drop in the growth rate of the economy compared with the earlier expectations.