Legal certainty determines whether a country grows or lags behind. Why is the predictability of rules more important to investors than the level of taxes, and what specifically undermines the business environment in Slovakia?
Legal certainty is not just a term found in the reasoning of court decisions. It is the foundation upon which the confidence of both domestic and foreign entrepreneurs in the stability of the business environment rests.
The predictability of rules is just as important to investors as the level of taxes. A stable and somewhat stricter system almost always prevails over a system that is cheaper but unpredictable. At the same time, instability is harmful regardless of which direction the rules move—it is not a specific regulation that creates mistrust, but the very pace and unpredictability of the changes.
Slovakia has long been producing increasingly extensive rules that are difficult to understand even for experts. Frequent legislative changes without expert discussion, inconsistent practices among public administration bodies, haphazard digitization, and non-transparent subsidy schemes—all of these are concrete manifestations of legal uncertainty, which has measurable economic consequences.
Yet this uncertainty is a tax that, while not listed in any tax code, we all pay—through slower growth, investments that have gone elsewhere, and companies that were established abroad instead of here.
