Serbia is set to receive a EUR 600mn handout from the EU towards its around EUR 2.2bn reconstruction of the 230km Belgrade-Nis railway link, which will drastically cut journey times in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Spanning the country from north to south, Belgrade-Nis is a key travel route
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban criticized the EU for imposing new sanctions instead of providing assistance and for depriving Hungary and Poland of the recovery funds they were entitled to, in his annual “state of the nation” speech in Budapest on Sunday, 19 February. Standing in front of a sign
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the Western world to send more help when he opened the Munich Security Conference (MSC) from Kyiv on Friday. “We need speed,” Zelenskyy said. The MSC is the primary global platform for the exchange of ideas on security policy, assembling hundreds of heads-of-state, ministers, influential
The European Commission (EC) has referred Poland to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for violating EU law, it announced Wednesday, 15 February. EC Vice-President for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova tweeted “EU law must be equally applied across the Union. The EU’s top court will
Moldova shut down its airspace for three hours on Tuesday, 14 February, one day after the country’s head of state accused Russia of plotting to overthrow its government. An unidentified balloon is thought to have caused the disruption. The move to close the airspace was seen as a precautionary
A new Hungarian bank is set to emerge from the merger of MKB Bank and Takarekbank as overseen by Magyar Bankholding and approved by the Hungarian National Bank, state news agency MTI reports. The megabank will be formed on April 30, creating Hungary’s second-largest financial institution, overtaking OTP Bank.
Dorin Recean, a pro-Western defence expert and former interior minister, is expected to become Moldova’s new prime minister after receiving Parliament’s approval this week. This comes following the unexpected resignation of Natalia Gavrilita on Friday, February 10, after a tough 18-month tenure overshadowed by the war in neighbouring
Leaders from the Baltic nations and Poland have called for the utilization of approximately EUR 300bn worth of assets from the Russian Central Bank currently frozen by EU member states, towards the reconstruction of Ukraine. In a joint letter to to European Council President Charles Michel, European Commission President Ursula
The Polish government received approval from the US State Department for a potential USD 10bn weapons deal aimed at modernising its military, on Tuesday 7 February. Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak tweeted that “the great reinforcement of the Polish artillery is getting closer. The US State Department has approved the
The European Union expanded its ban on Russian diesel fuel and refined oil products with immediate effect on Sunday 5 February, two months after its initial embargo. The ban is accompanied by a price cap of USD 100 per barrel for diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline, agreed upon by the
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with a working group aiming to save the indebted steel company Dunaferr on Wednesday, 1 February. Dunaferr manufactures steel products for the engineering, automotive, and manufacturing sectors in Dunaujvaros, central Hungary, employing around 4,000. After Wednesday’s meeting with the working group, which
OTP Bank has been cleared by Slovenian Competition Protection Agency (AVK) to acquire Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor (NKBM), Slovenia’s second largest bank, the Hungarian bank announced on Wednesday 1 February. The acquisition of all NKBM’s equity, which has been valued by media outlets at roughly EUR 1bn, was
So often the exemplar in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Estonia has been named the region’s most transparent country in the annual Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released by the NGO on Tuesday, 31 January. In 2022, Estonia placed 14th globally, with a CPI score of 74,
Retired General Petr Pavel, a former senior NATO commander, won the Czech presidency in a record-breaking victory over former prime minister Andrej Babis on Saturday. In the head-to-head second round of voting, pro-EU Pavel received 58.3% of the ballots, to Babis’s 41.68%, the largest ever victory margin
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgraded Hungary’s credit rating by one step to the lowest investment grade of BBB- on Friday, partly due to Hungary’s current struggles in accessing some EUR 30bn of EU funding. The credit ratings agency also pointed to the negative effects of