Tag: #Economy & Innovation

Family businesses are responsible for most of the employment and value creation in our country. They are all too often equated with SMEs, but family businesses can range from one-man businesses to multinationals. A report from Visiting Fellows Karel Volckaert and Michele Cincera

From vineyards in France to a port in Greece, from a football club in Roeselare (Belgium) to a high speed train between Budapest and Belgrade, from Volvo Cars and Trucks in Sweden to the electricity supply in Portugal… Chinese investors have their fingers in many pies. Not so in Eandis though. A proposal by the Chinese state-owned enterprise ‘State Grid’ to buy 14% of the Eandis shares ca…

Our western societies are going through a massive shake-up. The globalisation of the economy is leading to a multipolar, complex world. After the first two industrial revolutions, one in the 1780s involving the sciences, textile-making techniques, metalworking and rail transport, and the other from the 1880s onwards, with the advent of the internal combustion engine, electricity, cars and aircr…

A hail of statistics and forecasts from the IMF and the European Central Bank (ECB) is confronting us with an undeniable truth – the economy is not recovering fast enough. Growth rates, though positive, are mediocre. And the main indicator of economic recovery, namely anticipatory purchases and investments, i.e. inflation, has been revised downwards, despite the enormous injections of liq…

The real challenge over the next few years will be to avoid the shipwreck of the eurozone economy in what is often called a Japanese-style deflationary scenario – but with the Chinese slow-down feeding into it. This scenario is looking more and more plausible as prices have been stagnating for two years now and the inflation rate remains desperately low. Technically, of course, this could…

The creation of the euro was a purely political decision. There is nothing surprising about that – subjecting a population to a currency is a regalian right. In any case, a currency has to be backed by pledges of confidence that only the State can provide. It is as though the currency were somehow guaranteed by “psychic” units of individual trust in the State which, once gathe…

The unthinkable has happened – we are entering a period of negative interest rates. This startling situation began last year, when the ECB applied negative interest rates to the deposits that were placed with it. A negative interest rate is tantamount to making the private banks pay in order to place their liquidities in the ECB. It is as if the ECB were taking such good care of the depos…

Wiens brood men eet, wiens woord men spreekt, luidt het spreekwoord. Het gaat alvast niet op voor Griekenland. Het land dat al jaren virtueel bankroet is en alleen overeind staat door de harde maar gulle hand van de ECB, het IMF en Europa – de fameuze “Troika” – heeft dus massaal gestemd om die hand af te bijten en hun nieuwe leiders lopen alvast blaffend Europa rond. Of…

In its New Year Letter, Itinera presents its ten wishes for 2016. With contributions of Leo Neels, Ivan Van de Cloot, Marc De Vos, Bilal Benyaich, Johan Albrecht, Jean Hindriks, Alexandre Simons en Simon Ghiotto

Itinera insists that the debate on tax revenue must start with the goals. We will not escape the need to do more with less: more focus, quality, and effectiveness. An intelligent tax shift can be help and can already generate funds during this government. Een vakbond die het sociaal overleg boycot zolang de regering zijn agenda voor vermogensbelasting niet overneemt. De voorzitt…