German carmaker Volkwagen (VW) has put on hold its plans to open a battery plant in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) citing better incentives offered by the US. VW reportedly told EU officials last week that it will prioritise a battery plant in the US as it can access subsidies
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s Reform Party (ER) secured both the most votes and most seats ever in a national election in the 1.3mn Baltic country on Sunday. Defence and Estonia’s inflation-related cost of living crisis were the main issues of the election campaign, which coincided with
Estonia is named the most prosperous country in Eastern Europe, and the 21st globally, in the newly-released 2023 Legatum Prosperity Index. Legatum’s 16th annual survey praises the Baltic country’s “effective policy response” to Covid, which meant “Estonia’s pandemic-period contraction was one of the smallest in Europe”, and
Estonian voters go to the polls on Sunday 5 March, after a campaign that focussed on the country’s cost of living crisis and national security in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On Wednesday, ahead of the vote to fill the 101-seat Parliament (Riigikogu), Estonian Prime Minister
Poland has extended the operational license of its highly-polluting Turow lignite mine by 22 years, the Czech Environment Ministry revealed on Wednesday. “According to our information, Poland has authorised the extension of mining until 2044, with a decision by its climate and environment minister from 17 February,” Czech Environment Ministry
Annual inflation in the EU was 10% in January, according to the latest report from EU statistics office Eurostat. Of the 12 countries with inflation rates above the EU average of 10%, 11 were from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), with the highest annual inflation rates found in Hungary (26.
The EU on Saturday released its 10th package of sanctions against Russia targeting 87 individuals and 34 entities to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The package aims to sever ties between the EU and Russia by more than EUR 10bn
Russia has ceased the supply of oil to Poland through the Druzhba pipeline, CEO of Polish oil refiner PKN Orlen Daniel Obajtek announced on Saturday, 25 February. The sudden suspension of oil supplies through the pipeline, which is exempt from EU anti-Russian sanctions, has the potential to impact Poland’s
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
The European Commission (EC) on Wednesday endorsed a package of 24 guarantee programmes worth EUR 2.4bn to support investments in the EU’s neighbourhood and enlargement countries in the West Balkans. The new guarantees approved by the EC’s Operational Board of the European Fund are classified under the
Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia have jointly requested EU funding to develop the necessary infrastructure to support increased gas supplies from Azerbaijan. The countries say they recognize the importance of energy security for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and see the potential for Azerbaijan to play a crucial role in