Venture capital (VC) financiers invested EUR 71mn in Lithuanian fintechs in 2021, up from EUR 18mn in 2020, according to The Financial Times’ first ever special report on the country. User-friendly regulation is attracting start-ups, though the UK’s lead will be hard to match, the UK business daily writes
Slovenia’s government saw off a major opposition challenge on Sunday, 27 November, as voters approved three laws in a referendum vote widely seen as a vote of confidence in the left-liberal ruling coalition. The right-wing Democrats Party (SDS) had called referendum attempting to repeal three so-called “damaging” laws, including
Hungary could lose billions of euros from its Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) funding entitlement after the European Commission (EC) decided that it is unsatisfied with its rule of law reforms and corruption levels on Wednesday, 23 November. Hungary is officially entitled to EUR 5.8bn of RRF funds as
Robotisation has risen sharply in CEE, according to a new report entitled “How do Economies in EU-CEE Cope with Labour Shortages?” released by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw). As robotisation levels mainly depend on the automotive, electrics and electronics industries, they have spiked in recent years in
The EU brokered a last-ditch agreement between Kosovo and Serbia on Wednesday, 23 November, only for Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to seemingly disregard the deal, which attempts to solve a long-running bilateral dispute over car registration plates. The EU has spent almost a decade formally working with the countries in
The European Commission (EC) told Slovakia on Tuesday to include spending limits in its state budget or risk endangering the EUR 6.3bn it has earmarked for the country via its Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). According to the EC, Slovakia has failed to follow up on calculating how spending
Ryanair’s ongoing dispute with the Hungarian government escalated last week, as the company’s CEO dismissed Hungary’s revisions to its aviation tax as “idiotic and damaging”. The stand-off over has pitted one of Europe’s most combative businessmen, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, against Hungary’s pugnacious Prime
The meeting of the parliamentary speakers of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries scheduled for this Friday (25 November) has been cancelled after legislative leaders from Czechia and Poland announced they would not attend the event, citing Hungary’s friendly relations with Russia, Czech new website Seznam Zpravy reported. Czech Speaker
The death of two men at the hands of a missile on farmland in the Polish village of Przewodow sparked fears that the Ukraine war could spill over into neighbouring states this week. The two men were reportedly employed at a grain-drying facility in the village near Poland’s border
Liberal attorney and author Natasa Pirc Musar, 54, will become Slovenia’s next president after defeating her right-wing rival Andze Logar in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday. Pirc Musar beat Logar by 54% to 46% in a head-to-head ballot, after the right-winger failed to secure a
For the ninth consecutive year, Estonia has the best tax regime of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, according to the latest International Tax Competitiveness Index (ITCI). Of the index’s top ten countries, five from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) were included. Estonia’s top ITCI
Cybersecurity, data-driven finance and the digital euro – on what principles will the future digital payment ecosystem be based? Data sharing, digital central bank money and the fight against increasing cybercrime were among the central issues regarding transformation of the digital payment market, according to speakers at the CE Digital Payments
Hungary will find out whether it will receive its EUR 7.2 bn pandemic recovery fund payment on 22 November, Bloomberg reports, citing inside EU sources. After over a year of discussions, in September the European Commission (EC) froze the funds due to concerns regarding the rule of law in
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is one of the fastest growing regions in Europe by enterprise value and has grown by 760% since 2017, according to the latest annual report by Dealroom.co. The Amsterdam-based startup and tech data company found three main takeaways from its research of regional venture
“Now we have decided to atomise Polish energy: two nuclear power plants will be built, one in cooperation with the USA and the other with South Korea,” Poland’s ruling party PiS Chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced in Suwalki, north-eastern Poland on Saturday. A third reactor is also planned, Kaczynski revealed,
Nokian Tyres will build a EUR 650mn passenger car tyre factory in Oradea, western Romania, creating around 500 jobs, it announced on Tuesday, 1 November. The tyre plant will have an annual capacity of six million units, with room for expansion, and will also be home to a logistics centre
Household electricity prices rose year-on-year in the first half of 2022, from EUR 22 per to EUR 25.30 per 100 kWh on average, according to the latest report by Eurostat. Meanwhile households across the bloc saw gas prices climb from EUR 6.40 to EUR 8.60 per 100
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili signed a strategic partnership agreement and discussed responses to the energy crisis in Budapest on Thursday. A key point on the agenda was the possibility of transiting electricity from Azerbaijan to Hungary via Georgia and Romania. Orban said a
The tensions around the burgeoning relations between Taiwan and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) will be on the agenda when US president Joe Biden meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Bali today (Monday 14, November). Last Monday Lithuania opened its trade office in Taiwan, the same day that the 23-million
Estonia’s Sõrve peninsula area looks set to be the location for the major Estonian-Latvian hybrid offshore wind farm project ‘Elwind’, according to a feasibility study. The total capacity of the planned project will be 700MW to 1GW, and annually will provide over 3 TWh of energy, improving energy security
Czech-founded WAG Payment Solutions PLC announced on Tuesday that it has agreed to fully acquire Grupa Inelo SA, a leading fleet and work time manager in Poland and Slovenia, for up to EUR 306mn. FTSE 250 company WAG, also known as Eurowag, runs a digital platform that processes fuel and
Romanian lorry drivers urged their government to “relentlessly lobby” for the country to join the Schengen zone on Monday, asserting that preventing lengthy delays at its border with Hungary would increase freight volumes by around 20%. On Monday, Europa 2002 Haulier Employers’ Association chairman Adrian Pop echoed the sentiments of
The loan-book performance of banks in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is set to worsen as interest rate hikes take their toll on the loan repayment capacity of borrowers, according to a report released by Moody’s on Thursday. The credit rating agency notes that although CEE region’s inflation
MEPs backed Bulgaria and Romania joining the Schengen zone in the coming months by an overwhelming margin on Tuesday. Of the 639 members of the European Parliament (EP), 547 voted in favour of the proposal to 49 against and 43 abstentions. After the vote, Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca tweeted
Passenger car production was up 21.2% year-on-year, to 381,971 units, in Romania in the first three quarters of 2022, according to figures released Monday. Of these 230,078 unites were Dacia and 151,893 Ford models, the Romanian Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACAROM) reported. The figures represented a rise