Bad examples in Europe

The Latvian daily warns that in defining the country's economic future, Latvia's government should not be guided by other European states: "The worst option is to allow the fear of opinion surveys to lead you to protect state-owned companies from the free market. Many governments have fallen into this trap. An excellent example is Italy with its national airline Alitalia, which has been on the verge of insolvency several times only to be saved by government loans. This has done nothing but prolong the lack of efficiency and sooner or later tax payers get wind of this. A further sad example is the clout of trade unions in Scandinavia, Germany and France, which leads to stagnation because it discourages foreign investment. And in the end the competitiveness of Europe as a whole suffers."

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