Slovakia

INESS members took to the streets with a physical version of the annual bureaucracy load of a new company (652 pages of forms) and polled pedestrians about their view on red tape, giving red apples to the pessimists and green ones to the more positive oriented folks.

Since personal interest is a mandatory attribute of a human life, i.e. humans a priori aim to meet their needs and follow their passions, it is unbefitting to assume that public interest exists away from the nature of human beings, for someone and in order to achieve something.

On July, 28, 2016, INESS organized in cooperation with EdChoice the 7th annual event commemorating Milton Friedman – The Friedman Legacy Day. This year, more than 100 similar events in various countries around the globe were held, the aim of which was to remember the intellectual legacy of one of the greatest economist of the century.

If the needs of economy are long ignored, the ability to create resources necessary for maintaining or even improving our standards of living will be lost. The politicians – whether the ones in Slovakia, in foreign countries or in institutions of EU – should finally acknowledge several basic priorities vital for business.

The Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia has already submitted a document to the Minister of Economy which includes 40 bureaucratic absurdities that were previously identified by both entrepreneurs and the lay public under the patronage of the Bureaucratic Nonsense of the Year project.

I can already see the ironic grins, since I suggest creating new bureaucracy to fight bureaucracy. By applying this suggestion, however, no new administration would be created. The existing one would be reorganized so there would be a clearly assigned authority and responsibility to accomplish this important priority.

Centre for Economic and Market Analyses recently published a study dealing with circular economy. The text “The Efficiency of the Waste Sorting System in the Czech Republic – International comparison” deals with collective system of extended producers’ responsibility for packaging waste.

While higher taxes cause immediate pain, numerous fees can be hidden in prices of products with anybody hardly noticing. A systematic concealing of environmental or social policies into the electricity prices is one of the causes of high prices. INESS has attempted to quantify the effect by introduction of the imaginary “Electric Tax”.

The results of the recent elections surprised probably all Slovaks. Quite a number of parties made it to the Parliament and everyone is waiting what a mash-up they will create. Presumably the biggest surprise was the success of an extreme right-wing party Kotleba – People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS)

The election night is always magical. It is a beautiful moment when we may spot all shades of human emotions, starting with joy and celebration, ending with consternation, sadness or even total disillusionment. Saturday’s elections in Slovakia were quite special in this respect.