Press

The ifo Institute proposes work visa agreements between the EU and safe third countries as a way to reduce the number of asylum applications and irregular immigration. “This would enable legal and controlled immigration. One reason the European asylum system is overloaded is the lack of opportunities to enter the EU legally. Especially for low-skilled people, the chances of obtaining work visas in Europe are vanishingly small,” says Panu Poutvaara, Director of the ifo Center for International Institutional Comparisons and Migration Research.

The business climate for solo self-employed and microenterprises in Germany improved somewhat in April. The “Jimdo-ifo Business Climate Index for the Self-Employed” rose to -13.8 points*, up from -15.6 points* in March. Dissatisfaction with current business has decreased slightly, as has skepticism regarding expectations for the next six months. The signal coming from service providers is particularly positive. Here, order backlogs are slowly stabilizing. “The self-employed are hoping that the order situation will ease,” ifo Expert Katrin Demmelhuber says.

Joint energy and climate action policy in the EU could save European countries EUR 248 billion between 2024 and 2050, with Germany alone saving EUR 66 billion. This is according to a study conducted by the ifo Institute in Munich on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Munich and Upper Bavaria to calculate the cost of making Europe climate neutral by 2050. “Having every country in Europe pursue energy climate action policy alone leads to huge additional costs. Joint climate action is always better than national climate action,” says Mathias Mier, ifo researcher and author of the study.