Slovakia

Slovak Labour Code that requires separation of the meal contribution for an employee from the salary of the employee created an artificial meal voucher market and ensured the voucher companies millions in revenue and generous profit margins, which are, at the end of the day, paid by the majority of workers, employers and restaurateurs in Slovakia.

The proponents of the limited access to savings caught savers into a trap. Take it or leave it. Fortunately, also thanks to INESS, which also commented on the law in Parliament, there is a sort of exit option for savers, who don’t like the offered annuities but need some money from their savings. They can keep their savings account and withdraw at least annual yield.

Competitiveness of Europe is lagging, pension systems keep ignoring the demographic trend, relative price of energy for industrial consumers is growing, there are popular jokes about labor markets in France or Italy, starting a business and tax compliance is still extremely demanding tasks in many of the member countries.

The investment incentives (part of state aid) are like a looser relative at a family meeting. Nobody is too excited to see him, but everybody is accepting that he has to be there. Every single economist will confirm that the incentive represents market disorder.

Carrousel of changes at the Slovakian Ministry of Education is not an anomaly but rather an illustration of the instability and unpredictability, which in public sector seems to be adopted as systemic solution.

Although we tend to see the situation of the countries in East-Central Europe as one in which they are forced to choose between the East and the West, in reality, these countries do not have much of a choice.

With Germany at long last imposing a nation-wide wage floor, the country’s slowly conforming to the rest of Europe. Come the crisis and the erstwhile ‘Sick Man of Europe’ became the continent’s economic valedictorian. Extremely low (for European standards) unemployment rate cemented the make-believe caprice that it would work.

From time to time, our media report that Slovakia has once again fallen in another competitiveness ranking. The papers write about it for a day or two, the TV stations show a few reports, opposition barks a bit, the government refuses the criticism and challenges the results. However, the topic usually does not live to see its third day in the media.

At the quarter-century mark of the Visegrad states’ freedom from the USSR, Johannes Wachs examines the Group’s role in today’s European Union.

Roma people are often referred to as the abusers of social system who create a significant burden on public finance. As a consequence, limiting social benefits to Roma is often proposed by many as a solution for public deficits.