A collection of 100 posts
The new report on rule of law and governance by the European Commission (EC) gives a mixed picture on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) anti-corruption efforts, judicial independence, media freedom, and legislative practices. The EC’s Rule of Law Report 2024, its 5th, included assessments of developments in Bulgaria, Czechia,
Romania reported the highest inflation rate in May, of 5.8%, driven by significant increases in housing and utilities prices, according to the latest data from the EU’s official statistics agency Eurostat. Croatia experienced the second highest inflation in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), of 4.3%, driven primarily
Despite an overall downturn, the Central and Eastern European (CEE) start-up scene showed resilience in the first quarter of 2024, when it secured USD 11.8bn in investor funding. AI continues to attract significant interest, representing about 17% of global funding. Other key industries receiving investments in CEE include enterprise
Per capita income in Slovenia will surpass that of Italy by 2029 when adjusted for purchasing power (PPP), according to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections, while Lithuania will draw level and Poland will not be far behind. The shift makes good on promises that the Central and Eastern
By 2030 Artificial Intelligence could be contributing as much as 11.5%, or USD 700bn (EUR 6.55bn), to the GDP of Southern Europe, including the Adriatic region, Kalin Dimtchev, country manager for Microsoft Adriatic, said in a recent interview about the AI transformation. Both the public and private sectors
Lithuania had the lowest annual inflation rate of 0.4% in the EU in March 2024, EU official statistics office Eurostat reports. The EU’s highest inflation rates were also recorded in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries, with the steepest price increases in Romania (6.7%), Croatia (4.9%
The ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won the most seats but failed to secure a simple majority in the snap parliamentary election held on Wednesday, 17 April. The HDZ won 61 seats (down 7) in the 151-member assembly, to 42 (up 22) for the Social Democratic Party-led (SPD) centre-left
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg agreed to progress with planning a greater role in coordinating aid to Ukraine on the first of two days of meetings at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday 4 April, the 75th anniversary of the signing of the defence alliance’s founding document.
The share of renewable sources in gross final energy consumption at the EU level reached 23% in 2022, up 1.1 percentage points (pp) year-on-year, the bloc’s statistics office Eurostat reports. The EU’s revised Renewable Energy Directive has upped the bloc’s 2030 renewable energy target from 32%
The EU has selected seven projects to co-fund 5G transport corridors connecting regions throughout Europe, improving road, rail, inland waterways, and multimodal transport. They will support 5G infrastructure deployment over cross-border sections of 5G corridors and ensure service continuity when border crossing. Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is well represented
Hungary remained the EU’s most inflationary economy with an annual rate of 9.6% in October, an EU statistics office Eurostat report released Friday 17, November revealed. On the upside, this was the first time Hungary’s inflation rate had fallen to single digits since April 2022. The EU’
Automotive and Transport has dropped to third place amongst large companies in CEE, as business sectors of Central and Eastern European (CEE) shifted in size, partly due to soaring commodities prices, the latest Coface CEE Top 500 study found. In its 15th annual study, the French insurance company collects data
The foreign ministers of Austria, Croatia, and Slovenia have published a joint article calling for “several concrete steps to be taken without further delay” regarding the expansion of the EU, including the commencement of accession talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) by the end of the year. In the joint
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Lithuania were among the 13 EU member states to request loans from the European Recovery Fund’s Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (RRF), the European Commission announced Friday. The deadline for submissions of loan requests from the NextGenerationEU fund’s resources
European Council President Charles Michel will announce that the EU should be ready to accept new members by 2030, when he opens the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF) in Bled, north-western Slovenia, on Monday, 28 August. Michel will reportedly tell leaders of EU candidate countries at the event that “If we