“Foreign reference pricing” is just price controls by the backdoor The world is full of bad ideas that self-interested parties sometimes try to bring to these shores, swearing up and down they’re actually good: karaoke, kale, Neti pots, the Yugo, the Macarena, Gerard Depardieu — the list goes on. To this hall of shame must […]
Tag: France
Can the transatlantic relationship survive the age of Realpolitik?
By Martin Michelot, courtesy of Europeum Reports that US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, was heard saying that his job “was to destroy the EU” call into question the reality of this desire for a “reset”, but it is clear that Europeans will need to come to the table. Their current level […]
French motorists and smokers are “cash cows”
“Tax on fuel and cigarettes – How the motorist and the smoker were transformed into ‘cash cows’ with €60 billion taxes” Courtesy of the Molinari Economic Institute The taxation of fuel and cigarettes is particularly hard to understand for the general public, but also for specialists. The price of these products includes specific […]
Macron hits brakes on EU enlargement
“Macron’s ‘Non’ to EU Enlargement” By Erwan Fouéré, courtesy of CEPS “I am counting on you”. With these words, President Macron appealed to the citizens of North Macedonia to vote in favour of the Prespa Agreement in the referendum on 30 September […]
Spending more doesn’t equal polluting less
“A Real Green Economy Is Possible In France” By Michel Gay and Jean-Luc Salanave, courtesy of Contrepoints SPENDING MORE IS NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH POLLUTING LESS For 10 years the European climate policy based on renewable energy has been a failure. It has squandered tens […]
TES Weekly Update: America needs a Space Force with teeth
Like it or not, space is already being militarized For those of us old enough to remember the Cold War — ah, simpler times, when all we had to worry about was the horrifyingly real possibility of nuclear annihilation at any moment without warning — the idea of the United States creating a real […]
Macron is neither liberal nor a reformer (but he IS French)
Those who are fond of Voltaire’s famous quip about the Holy Roman Empire should take pleasure in the evisceration of Emmanuel Macron by CapX’s Anne-Elisabeth Moutet, who argues that the French liberal reformer is in fact none of these things — well, except that […]
France hits U.S. tech titans with new tax
Ryan Khurana at CapX argues that France’s new “digital services tax” is a thinly veiled assault on leading American tech firms. With a three percent revenue tax on companies making €750 million and up, the measure is squarely aimed at the likes of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple — which French Finance Minister […]
SHENZHEN VS. WEIMAR: Europe at the Crossroads
By Erik Sass TES Editor Paris in spring 2019 is a study in contrasts, juxtaposing fabulous cultural treasures with damaged storefronts and heavy police presence, testimony to the populist eruption that has rocked France in recent months. The contrasts were no less vivid – and the social ferment just as evident – during the […]