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Supporting the Unsupported: Mission & Challenges of the European Endowment for Democracy

Thursday 16/05/2013

For the European Union, democracy support is both a moral obligation and an expression of enlightened self-interest. Those who live in freedom have an obligation to support those who don’t, if and when such support is desired. At the same time, historical experience shows that democracies are in general more peaceful and more prosperous than countries under authoritarian rule or failed states. Hence, the European Union, its Member States and its citizens have good reasons to assist democrats, support the transition to the rule of law and good governance, and help the development of civil society in the countries of its Southern and Eastern neighbourhood.

The years 1989-1991, with the peaceful revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe, were a perfect example of such a development. Western support for the democracy movements was crucial, and the successful transition of the last two decades has by far exceeded all initial expectations.

Vít Novotný

Monday 13/05/2013

The peaceful dissolution of the Czechoslovak federation in January 1993 has been the precondition for the excellent cooperation between Czechia and Slovakia as two independent countries today. This was an agreement among the speakers at the conference 'Separate, Yet Together', which I attended on 17 April 2013 in Prague. The conference was the first event that the CES had with our Czech member foundation, the European Academy for Democracy and also the first with one of our Slovak member foundations, the Anton Tunega Foundation. These foundations are affiliated with their respective Czech and Slovak Christian Democratic parties, the Christian Democratic Union (KDU-ČSL; CZ) and Christian Democratic Movement (KDH; SL), and this was the first ever CES event with both the EAD and the NAT.

The conference was very good on content. It included first-hand accounts of some direct participants of the Czech-Slovak constitutional negotiations in the years 1990-1992. For example, the then Czech Prime Minister (1990-1992), Petr Pithart, recounted examples of volatile behaviour of then Slovak leader, Vladimír Mečiar (who later went to install a somewhat authoritarian regime in independent Slovakia).

Pablo Zalba

Tuesday 30/04/2013

Today, no one disputes that credit is vital for small and medium enterprises. Despite the momentum that big businesses give to our economies, SMEs are still the basis of the Spanish productive sector and the ones employing the majority of citizens in Spain and in Europe.

With the crisis, the challenges facing SMEs have become more pronounced. Not only because of the drop in sales as it is the case for other companies, but because of major difficulties in accessing credit. A few years ago, almost any solvent SMEs in Europe could take out a loan. However, the situation has changed and today, the financial market is “fragmented”. What do we actually mean with this? Simply that the criteria for accessing credit varies greatly across Europe. For example, an SME in Spain must satisfy vastly different criteria than an SME in Germany in order to take out a loan.. The result of this is that banks are failing to grant loans to companies in Spain, while similar companies in Germany are being provided with the credit they need. Moreover, even in cases where they can access loans, Spanish companies end up paying a hefty premium, estimated by Deutsche Bank to be in the region of three and four percent.

John Bruton

Monday 29/04/2013

WHY ARE MODERN BUSINESS REGULATIONS SO COMPLEX?

I believe that across the western world we may be reaching some sort of limit in the complexity of rules governing business. The response to the financial crisis has been ever more complex rules, that only a tiny number of professional advisors could ever hope to remember or understand properly. In the United States, the Glass-Steagall Act, introduced to regulate banking after the Depression of the 1930’s ran to 37 pages; in contrast, the Dodd-Frank Act, introduced in the wake of the recent crisis, runs to 848 pages of basic text, plus 30,000 pages of implementing rules. In the UK, the 1979 banking act ran to 75 pages, while the 2012 Financial Services act runs to 534 pages. It is the same with taxation: in 1997, Tolley’s guide to the UK tax system had around 5000 pages, while the latest edition has 17,795 pages. I have no doubt the pattern is similar in other countries and in other areas of regulation.

Roland Freudenstein

Wednesday 24/04/2013

One week after the Boston bombings, with the perpetrators dead or arrested, we may not know the whole story yet. But we know that America is, once more, confronted by a case of 'home-grown' terrorism, i.e. an attack by people that, no matter where they originally came from, radicalised themselves and became jihadists while being residents of a Western country. Most previous comparable attacks were unsuccessful - this one was not. And in the ensuing debate about what can be done to prevent such attacks, we are experiencing a sense of déjà vu: just like in Europe after comparable attacks, foiled or successful, the knee-jerk reaction by the Left is to search the perpetrators' curriculae for signs of disenfranchisement, of dashed hope and discrimination suffered at the hands of the host country's majority. And the conclusion is invariably that if we could only become more tolerant, more open societies, such sad cases would not happen. Which is why the best preventive anti-terror strategy is anti-discrimination legislation, promoting a multi-cultural society and legalising all forms of immigration.

thinkingeurope.eu

Blog

Supporting the Unsupported: Mission & Challenges of the European Endowment for Democracy

Separate, yet Together: Reflecting on Czech-Slovak Relations

SMEs: A Solution from Europe

Who are the real winners from complex financial regulations?

After Boston - Terrorism, Immigration and Integration

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