The euro indeed plays a major role in the Greek drama, but the ultimate cause of the Greek economic turmoil lies somewhere else. The real problem is that the architects of the euro used it as a turbo that was meant to speed up the integration engine of the eurozone, while encouraging other European countries to do so as well.
If the hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, small and big businesses alike, took as long to deal with their daily existential crises, every last one of them would have already gone bankrupt. At the same time, politicians don’t have to worry about it.
On May 6, 2015, in Bratislava, the F. A. Hayek Foundation organized an international seminar titled: “Gold plating – National Issues vs European Legislation”, reflecting an increasing interest of Slovak stakeholders on the topic of Gold plating.
For an average observer, the past month in the United States has been characterized by a frenzy of oppressive government legislation designed to infringe upon personal liberty. While this has been true for most of the Obama administration, the maelstrom, whipped up by the media, on this specific issue regards a minor law passed by the state of Indiana and not the federal government.
Is there a difference between a starting entrepreneur and a disabled person? Yes, there is, and it’s a big one. A disabled person has much fewer options if he or she wants to get a government aid compared to a starting entrepreneur. I remembered this joke when I was reading one of the government strategies. But the joke may soon become a reality if the government decides to implement it. And that’s not funny at all.
European politics will surely highlight one of the days in their calendar the next week, to check the results of the elections and eventually relax again. Up to this, the EU has to, as every five years, await the sleeping volcano, which in event of its explosion, may cover the EU with darkness.
Gold-plating is a term that describes the process where an EU directive is given additional powers when being transposed into the national laws of member states – a quite common approach in any EU state. The seminar will reflect upon this issue and give an overview of positive approaches on how successful EU countries deal with the problem and what kind of procedures they have implemented. Join F.A.Hayek Foundation on May 6, 2015 in Bratislava!
We can find examples of negative interest rates in countries throughout history. But these are geographically or time-isolated cases. However, today we live in a world where more and more things are turning upside down. And one of such things is the fact that negative interest rates are shifting from a deviation to a norm (for the time being only within the financial system).
In the last few years, the compound word “start-up” has established itself in the Slovak language and is successfully edging out the original term – “a beginning entrepreneur”. A start-up, a start-uper, the start-up scene, a start-up strategy, a start-up investment – the media are packed to the rafters with such collocations. This is not a coincidence. The change in our vocabulary reflects the greater attention paid to the segment of beginning entrepreneurs. It wasn´t…
Nominants of Syriza haven’t even settled comfortably in their key chairs in the new Greek government yet and new prime minister together with finance minister have already made their first compromise and step back from their pre-electoral promises. They refrained form talking about the debt write-off, started talking about restructurization of debt and went on a European tour to find out from creditors which particular forms of restructurization could be acceptable.
