News

IREF participated to the 8th European Resource Bank held in Yalta, Ukraine. Representatives from 50 think tanks joined the event and discussed the necessity to foster cooperation in order to…

One of the biggest Bulgarian newspapers Ce?? published an article from IREF’s board member Pierre Garello. The article is presenting the main conclusions of our Yearbook on European Taxation 2011.…

The Spanish newspaper LibreMercado.com published an article from IREF’s fellow Angel Martin, with reference to our Yearbook on European Taxation 2011. You can read the paper here.

This seems not totally unrealistic since, unlike other euro zone countries, Finland requires approval from parliament before taking part in EU bailouts. And without unanimous approval from EU member states, there will be no bailout…

The first phase of a €600 million public-private partnership on the Internet of the Future (FI-PPP) was launched today by European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes. The project aims to stimulate internet innovation, and reposes on the argument that “if we don’t invest and innovate first, our global competitors will”. Surprising point of view, giving the huge wave of innovations in the Internet area and the fact that they occurred without the help of any government.

It is often rightly pointed out that the EU has (so far) no power to tax. True. But it has the power to regulate and uses it! If both, taxation and regulation have a profound impact on companies’ and, if only indirectly, on consumers’ decisions, taxation attracts more public attention largely because data on taxation are more readily available. As a consequence, the impact of EU and member states regulations on our economies tends to be underestimated. How can we correct for this? A look at the work done in the US by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, will provide some inspiration.

While several EU member states are facing an unprecedented sovereign debt crisis and others are struggling to cut their spending to avoid the crash, the EU Budget and Financial Programming…

The French government is considering the possibility to force companies that have paid higher dividends to their shareholders in 2010 and have more than 50 employees to pay a €…

No, this is not science fiction, but recent statistics from the most respectable Eurostat. With the exception of Cyprus and Luxembourg, France is the European country with the lowest value added by the industrial sector – 12.4% of GDP in 2009. To compare, the EU27 average is 18% of GDP and the number for Greece is reaching 13.3%, while some of the EU leading economies, like Germany, are scoring up at 22.2%. It is also interesting to notice the paradox that Germany is accounting for approximately the same number of enterprises per capita as France…

Former Finance Minister of New Zealand, Hon Sir Roger Douglas, recently shared his analysis of the present situation in New Zealand, contrasting it with the lot of their neighbors from…