Estonia: IMF, OECD urge budget cuts, tax reform

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommended that the Estonian government stabilise public debt by limiting budget spending and increasing revenue, ERR reports. IMF experts warned that if current policies continued, public debt would become unsustainable. GDP growth alone will not solve the country’s long-term challenges, they pointed out. Achieving more sustainable growth would require increasing…

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Latvia: Foreign investor group wants less union protection, overtime pay

The Foreign Investors Council in Latvia (FICIL) has called for reforming the country’s labour laws, LSM reports. FICIL said that Latvia’s labour market faced “growing structural challenges”, which it said were “driven by demographic decline, a mismatch between labour skills and market needs, and outdated regulations.” The business lobby group called for reforms to “enhance…

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Latvia: PM lists four policy priorities in 2025

The four policy priorities of Latvia’s coalition government in 2025 are “security, support for families, economic growth, and reducing bureaucracy,” Prime Minister Evika Silina announced, LSM reports. She will begin individual meetings with ministers to discuss the priorities, according to LETA. Silina said that national security remained the government’s most pressing priority, highlighting the need…

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Estonia: EU support boosted wages but not productivity: study

An analysis on the impact of EU financial support on Estonian firms revealed that while the subsidies led to higher sales revenues and wages, they did not significantly improve productivity, ERR reports. The study, conducted by researchers from the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, examined data from 1,435 companies that received European Regional Development…

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