Independence parties across Europe

While moderate politicians, who in massive number defend E.U., turn toward Europe as a source of identity, power, and hope, across the old continent populists are preparing a strong opposition to European interference in areas like immigration and refugee policy.  
On the one side, we are still hearing that "European Union is a unique community of shared solidarity and values". On the other side, English people decided to leave the E.U. after the leader of the U.K. Independence party had spread his slogan "We want our country back" (focusing more on immigration to Britain from other E.U. states).

Opposition to immigration has become a cornerstone of the hard right parties in Germany, France, Austria and the Netherlands. But most E.U. leaders think Europe shouldn't retreat from areas like asylum policy. And after the Brexit referendum they underlined that whoever decides to leave "that family" cannot expect all obligations to be omitted while keeping its privileges.

Meanwhile, the U.K. economic growth forecast for 2017 has been slashed from 2.2 to 1.4 percent in the wake of the Brexit referendum. It's easy to expect that business leaders will pay more taxes once the U.K. leaves the European Union.
Furthermore, the competitiveness of the UK automotive sector, which has been hugely successful in boosting exports, creating jobs and generating economic growth in recent years, will be affect by tax barriers on cars related to Brexit. Consequently, carmakers in Britain are still deciding on where to build their next vehicles.

More pipelines, and no carbon tax

This year China's annual GDP has dropped below 7% for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis. As it is known, China is still playing the most important  role in determining the health of our global economy, and it's slowing demand, especially when it comes from some commodities such as oil and gas, may affect developing economies which supply their resources to China. As a result, some experts think that the world should prepare for a great deal of volatility in emerging countries: Brazil, Indonesia, Chile, and South Africa to name a few.  

Nevertheless, although the consensus is now that the U.S. is still the world top economy, many countries believe China has already replaced  U.S. as the global superpower. indeed, President Trump declared, in his victory speech last week, that he will root his efforts to make America's economy great again. He also expect:

• American oil and gas production to surge;
• there will be no chance of a federal carbon tax;
• President Obama's Clean Power Plan is likely history;
• the U.S. will not ratify the Paris climate accord, and will not regulate its internal carbon dioxide emissions.

In addition, President Trump said that tax cut and pro-business policies will result in million of new jobs.  Unfortunately, tax cuts from the late 1970s to the early 2000s have always been focused on the reduction of income taxes at the top of the income scale: on rates paid not by ordinary working people but by the extremely rich. On the contrary, a progressive tax on high incomes and capital gains would favor business enterprises, rather than the individuals who control them, and would increase employment. As argued by J.K Galbraith, "resources are needed, and  could be used, for larger pressing purposes that meet greater needs".  I think that a tax cut policy wouldn't create new jobs. It would increase the flow of income to the pocket's of the 10 percent very rich people.

Inadeguacy of environmental policy

Human beings have long treated environment as a place from which they can take as much as they want and into which they can put as much as they want. It is known that we take everything for granted  and many aspects of the democratic institutions do not satisfactorily guarantee the conservation of the environment and the natural resources. We can not overlook the uncertainty regarding the international legal framework, which discourage investments in sustainable development projects.

Since 1970s most stable democracies have been enacting an harmonious and complete discipline for the protection of the environment. European countries also have been creating well known principles like polluter pay principle. In spite of a lot of provisions regarding dangerous activities for the environment and special  rules about pollution liability in case of contamination, the debate focused on the relation between democracy and environment is often superficially taken into consideration.

Many observers recognize that, from a substantial point of view, the legal system of criminalization of environmental offences remains largely inadequate.

In my opinion, it is time to demistify the anti-pollution policy of some European countries and stand up for our environmental rights.

English language will not exist anymore in the EU

With regard to the Brexit vote, some people are questioning the usefulness of the English language in the EU. Each member state of the EU has the right to indicate its official language to the European institutions, and when the European Community was founded in 1957 there were four languages: French, German, Dutch and Italian.  The development of the EU has brought 24 languages, and two out of three anglophone member states had not recognized the English language when they joined the UE: Ireland and Malta chose respectively Gaelic and Maltese.     

From 1957 to the mid-1990s French was considered the first language of the EU. And on 1st January, 1995, when Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the EU, the perspective changed: the new three members states chose the Shakespeare idiom as their second language. Consequently, since the 1990s most transactions have been dealt in English, French and German.

On the one hand, English will not exist anymore in terms of official language of the EU, considering that in less than two years United Kingdom will not be a member of the EU. On the other hand, according to a survey most European thinks that English is still the most useful language.

Triggering panic in the EU markets

In 2014 the stock markets slowdown was related to the shadow of Grexit.  And since last Friday, June 25th, Brexit vote and its implications have been threatening global markets.
There is no doubt that the Brexit referendum is a very important protest against the political elite, which is not taking into account the needs of the working class.  Consequently, EU policy makers are  afraid other people, such as Greeks, Spaniards and Italians, may follow the Britons. Politicians clearly foresee a situation in which Brexit  will cause a whole series of referendum through European countries, with the aim to leave the EU. In other words, the EU political elite foresees a domino effect of the Brexit referendum across Europe.
Moreover, Britain has voted to split up with the European Union in the same week Spain holds general election. And it may be interesting to underline that, according to surveys, 72 percent of the Spanish people do not trust the European Union.
In this perspective, there isn't any logical relationship between Brexit vote and market slowdown, considering that the British Stock market didn't fall so sharply, compared with Italian and Greek shares: it  dropped about 3 percent last Friday, although referendum has resulted in financial uncertainty and more than 60 percent of Scotland voters want to remain in the EU. On the contrary, broader European shares dropped by an average of 8.6 percent last Friday.
Is it  a conspiracy? It's to easy to see that a political elite has triggered panic in the stock market. EU policy makers have shown  to the people, who live in the EU countries, how a campaign to leave the EU will affect their savings. There is only a system of rule or government that may give them the right to do that to the European people: it's an authoritarian regime.  

Economic policy doesn't combat inequality anymore

Why policy makers don't understand the importance of an economic policy based on progressive redistribution? Flat taxation can't raise living standards and doesn't help economic growth.

As it is know, since the late 1980s the incomes of the very rich have been boosting. Consequently, the big problem for the bottom 90% of  Western countries workers  has been the rise inequality.

An interesting interview with the economist Joshua Bivens (https://www.washingtonpost.com) shows that fighting inequality may increase the rate of overall growth in the economy. 

Destroying the social state

One of  the most striking problems that social states everywhere must face in the twenty-first century is related to the achievement of social rights, such as education, health and retirement. This challenge may mark an immense step forward in historical terms. And those topics are strictly related to taxation and its choices between progressive, flat and regressive system.

Unfortunately, it's easy to see that economy is still working for billionaires, considering that:

• high managers and billionaires pay lower taxes than nurses or construction workers;
• the biggest banks around the world are bigger now than they were before the 2008 financial crisis;
• the richest 1% has captured 90% of all income growth since the recovery began.