barriers

January 1, 2018

How the Municipal VAT Exemptions Promote Tax Increases in the EU

As a general rule, local governments are exempt from VAT in the EU. Thus, VAT is not payable on the tax-financed consumption of municipalities and other local governments, at least when the services are produced in-house.
January 1, 2018

Is Neoliberalism to Blame for Orbàn and Le Pen?

Populism is on the rise, especially in Europe. Determining the causes is of crucial political importance. Some claim that “neoliberal” policies such as deregulation and free trade have contributed to the populist tide.
December 1, 2017

Android and the Challenge of Platform Management

Google Android is usually described as a mobile operating system – the software that links mobile hardware with applications and thus enables users to operate their smartphones in an effective way.
November 1, 2017

Artificial Intelligence and the EU Labour Market

Widespread automation is often named as the greatest long-term threat to human employment. But Europe’s immediate job market problems are of a different sort: regulatory, structural and demographic.
November 1, 2017

Accepting the Scientific Consensus: GMOs in the EU

The ECJ ruled that Italy had been wrong to ban the cultivation of an EU-approved genetically modified maize. This was a big victory for the plaintiff, an Italian farmer who was denied the right to grow the MON 810 maize.
November 1, 2017

Health by Stealth: Mandatory Food Reformulation

Food and soft drinks manufacturers are continually reformulating their products and bringing new products to market in response to consumer demand. In recent years, there has been growing interest in mandatory reformulation to reduce the salt, sugar and/or fat content of food.
November 1, 2017

Fair and Efficient? On the EC’s Proposals for Corporate Tax Reform in the Digital Single Market

n the wake of the Ecofin meeting that took place in Tallinn on September 15-16, the European Commission published a communication on “A Fair and Efficient Tax System in the European Union for the Digital Single Market” — code for “How to extract more tax revenue from multinational digital companies”.
October 1, 2017

The Consequences of Restricting the Posted Workers Directive

Posted workers are temporarily sent from one member state to another, usually for projects of short duration. There were 1.1. million posted workers in the EU in 2015, equivalent to 0.4 per cent of all full-time employment.