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The arguments for and against French pension reform

French president Emmanuel Macron confers with his staff in the Elysée Palace in Paris, February 5, 2020 (Elysée/Soazig de la Moissonniere) Emmanuel Macron’s government has proposed to raise the French pension age from 62 to 64 and abolish early retirement in the public sector. Pension reform was one of the reasons I endorsed Macron for a second term. French pensions are among the most generous in…

Companies don't really need noncompete clauses. They hurt startups and workers. America is right to ban them

Barbershop (Unsplash/Kamile Leonaviciute) America could ban noncompete clauses by the end of this year. The Federal Trade Commission has proposed to void such existing agreements and ban companies from including them in future contracts. It’s a seemingly simple change that could have massive repercussions. Economists suspect noncompetes are one reason middle-class wages have stagnated and…

How government creates shortages of doctors

Patients wait to see a general practitioner in Westmaas, the Netherlands (LHV) Rural France is running out of doctors. Politico Europe reports that 7 out of 68 million French citizens don’t have a referring general practitioner. 30 percent live in a region where access to physicians is poor. France is not alone. Small towns in the Netherlands and the United States are also medically…

Joe Biden got things done. Farmers protested in the Netherlands. The Spanish right radicalized. Our top stories of 2022

Joe Biden got more done than many anticipated at the beginning of the year. The consequences of Germany’s and the Netherlands’ shortsighted energy policies became obvious with the Russian war in Ukraine. Right-wing Spain waged lawfare against the left-wing government of Pedro Sánchez and its Catalan allies. Farmers’ protests broke out in the Netherlands. Emmanuel Macron lost his parliamentary…

Dutch plan for organic farming underwhelms

Dutch agriculture minister Piet Adema visits a farm in Bodegraven, October 11 (LNV) Dutch agriculture minister Piet Adema is spending €26 million in 2023 and 2024 to speed up the transition to organic farming. The money falls short of the €35 million per year Dutch farm lobby LTO had asked for. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the €1 billion Dutch farmers receive in national and EU subsidies…

Responding to American protectionism has downsides for Europe

American president Joe Biden greets French president Emmanuel Macron during the opening session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, November 1, 2021 (White House/Adam Schultz) Europe has no good options to respond to American subsidies for green energy and electric cars. Politicians are right to worry that the tax breaks and buy-American provisions of the…

Spanish judges block Senate debate to replace them

Constitutional Court in Madrid, Spain at night (Europa Press) Conservatives have plunged Spain into what Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez describes as “an unprecedented situation in our democracy” and Catalonia’s El Nacional calls “the biggest institutional challenge between powers in Spain since the attempted coup d’état of 1981.” “You have silenced parliament,” Sánchez told opposition leader…

Italy shows goodwill to EU with last-minute tax changes

Bartender in Siena, Italy, August 5, 2020 (Unsplash/Gabriella Clare Marino) Italy’s new right-wing government has backed away from a plan to let shops refuse card payments under €60. The country’s previous government, led by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi, required companies to accept all card payments in an attempt to fight tax evasion. Businesses that refused were fined €30 per…

Sánchez cleans up mess conservatives made in Catalonia with penal reforms

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez chairs a meeting of Socialist Workers’ Party lawmakers in Madrid, June 1 (PSOE/Eva Ercolanese) Spain’s ruling left-wing parties have abolished the crimes for which Catalonia’s independence leaders were imprisoned — and the right has gone berserk. Conservative deputies called the penal reforms an “assault on democracy”. The far right called Prime Minister Pedro…

Europe's asylum crisis, explained. A deep dive into the numbers + the policies of France, Italy and Netherlands.

Application center for asylum seekers in Ter Apel, the Netherlands (IND) Europe is the throes of another asylum crisis. The 27 countries of the EU plus Norway and Switzerland, which maintain open borders with the bloc, received some 98,000 asylum applications in September, the most in six years. Figures for the first nine months of 2022 suggest that most, and possibly all, member states will…

Rent control keeps failing, but countries keep trying. Reports from Germany, the Netherlands and Spain

The sun rises over the Gran Vía of Madrid, Spain (Unsplash/Arw Zero) So politicians understand how prices work after all. Spain, Germany and the Netherlands are capping prices of electricity and heating for consumers. Energy providers are still paying high prices for oil and record prices for natural gas due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, so governments will make up the difference. The price energy…

Dutch child care would pay price for government's failure

Daycare center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Klein & Co) Dutch child-care providers would pay the price for the government’s failed child-care policy. The last Dutch government resigned over a scandal in child-care benefits. Thousands of parents were wrongly accused of fraud. The current government, a coalition of the same political parties (including my own), would replace the benefits to…

Europe is falling behind in cultivated meat

Hamburger with cultivated chicken meat (Upside Foods) America is one step closer to legalizing cultivated meat. The Food and Drug Administration completed its first so-called pre-market consultation on chicken meat cultivated by Upside Foods of California. Selling cultivated meat in restaurants and stores will still take approval from the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection…

Is Ron DeSantis the next Donald Trump?

Republican governor Ron DeSantis of Florida speaks at the Student Action Summit in Tampa, July 22 (Gage Skidmore) Florida governor Ron DeSantis has become former president Donald Trump’s most likely rival for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 2024. DeSantis won reelection with almost 60 percent support on Tuesday, up from 50 percent in 2018 and by the widest margin in a Florida…

Don't blame polls for bad election predictions

United States Capitol in Washington DC (Shutterstock/Brandon Bourdages) The red wave wasn’t, and American journalists blame the polls. Before the midterm elections on Tuesday, many media predicted a “red wave” of Republican victories that would repudiate Democratic president Joe Biden. 37 House and three Senate elections remain to be decided, but it’s clear the red wave didn’t materialize. Some…

Midterm elections could have gone worse for Democrats

Skyline of Washington DC at night (Shutterstock) Tuesday’s midterm elections in the United States could have gone worse for Democrats. Many states are still counting their votes, but early results suggest Republicans underperformed. 371 of the 435 elections for the House of Representatives have been called: 172 for Democrats and 199 for Republicans. Democrats are still expected to lose their…