EU policy

October 1, 2014

Nutrition Taxes: a Broken Tool in Public Health Policy

It is vital to understand that the impact of nutrition taxes on the consumption of nutritionally poor food is unclear and that there is a sizable risk of instituting additional constraints on the country’s economic activity without getting the expected public health benefits.
October 1, 2014

Free Movement of Labour and the Future of the Welfare State

The free movement of workers across Member States is one the main historic achievements of the European integration process. Not only is such freedom important from the individual worker’s perspective, dramatically increasing the scope of potential employment opportunities. In a situation of uneven economic development, such mobility has also proven to be an important mechanism as a free-market regulator.
May 1, 2014

Economic Freedom in the Eu: Mediocre Today – World Leader Tomorrow?

Five years since the outbreak of the most severe economic crisis of our time, there is widespread consensus that today’s levels of unemployment, exclusion, deficit, and debt are unsustainable and need to be addressed. Yet the ongoing debate on “austerity vs. growth” is misleading and false.
March 1, 2014

LFMI Comments on European Commissions Suggestions for the Tobacco Directive

LFMI made a thorough analysis of European Commission’s proposal for the Tobacco directive (2001/37/EC), related public consultation and scientific evidence which was used in developing the proposal and provides comments and suggestions regarding the proposal.
March 1, 2014

The Government Debt Iceberg

Western governments have developed unfunded social insurance programmes where retiree benefits are paid for from the taxes of the working-age population. This means that an ageing population leads to 
rising expenditures that cannot be covered without increasing taxes on the young.
March 1, 2014

IBL Memo: Policy Framework for Climate and Energy in the Period From 2020 to 2030

Current obligations by the EU to decrease GHG emissions by 20% by 2020 are the most ambitious among industrialised nations. Because of these obligations EU citizens and businesses are experiencing an increasing fnancial burden, EU businesses are losing competitiveness vis-à-vis other industrial or industrialising nations, and a huge bureaucracy has been created that shall perforce have an interest to perpetuate itself.
December 1, 2013

From Nationalisation to State Control – The Return of Centralised Energy Planning

For a short period, around the turn of the millennium, the UK energy market was highly competitive, offering choice to consumers and keeping prices in check.
November 1, 2013

Liberal Voices. A Response to the EC Public Consultation on the 2030 Framework for Climate and Energy Policies

The EU has a clear framework to steer its energy and climate policies up to 2020.The 2030 framework should build on the experience and lessons from the current framework.