CNE Monatsmagazin Digest
November 2005

English Summary

"Fiscal warming!" According to a Brussels-workshop of IREF (Institute for Research on Economic and Fiscal Issues) most European countries were facing a kind of fiscal melt-down (or "fiscal warming" as Professor Jacques Garello wittily suggested): slower economic growth would stabilise tax revenues but would generate higher demands on welfare systems, which would exacerbate the debt problem. As Professor Victoria Curzon Price said, the workshop also concluded that Europe was descending slowly but surely towards an Argentinian implosion and that change, if any, would come from institutional and fiscal competition from Central and Eastern European countries, or from developing areas much further afield.

Money makes the world go around: In his most recent book, Roland Baader attacks two German evils at once: lacking affection towards capitalism and missing knowledge of the functioning of capitalism. Das Kapital am Pranger ("Capital pilloried") proves - as the subtitle justly indicated - to be a compass in nebulous Welfare-State-German. Baader explains in his book, reviewed by Hardy Bouillon, the function of capital, the significance of capitalism, its various forms and main opponent, namely politics.

Lousy with cash: Soon after the occupation of the CSR in 1938, German soldiers started buying Czech shoes, clothes and other industrial goods like mad. Why? Undervaluation of Czech korunas? High quality of Czech products? According to Professor Gerard Radnitzky the main reason was a liquidity overhang in mainland Germany, as a critical assessment of the "undervaluation thesis" would prove.

I like to move it: The Advisory Council of the German Enterprisers Institute (Unternehmerinstitut, UNI) held its annual meeting shortly before the German elections. Hence it devoted its meeting to the question: What has politics to offer, and what do publicists, academics and enterprisers expect from it. The Council agreed that Germany urgently should to be "moved" and that it desperately needs reforms. CNE's Head of Academic Affairs, Dr. Bouillon, keynote speaker at dinner, spoke on efficient ways to influence politics.

REACH OUT: According to EU-Commissioner Stavros Dimas, a KPMG-study demonstrated the economic efficiency of the planned directive on registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals (REACH). On the contrary, says Edgar Gaertner, Director of the CNE Environment Forum. A closer look to the study would prove what business fears. According to the cost-benefit-analysis, required by the Maastricht Treaty, costs are likely to amount 4,3 und 9,7 billion Euro, faced by no single proved benefit, concludes Gaertner..

Click here to view the full Monatsmagazin in German.

Dr. Hardy Bouillon is Head of Academic Affairs at the Centre for the New Europe.