A collection of 357 posts
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 Bulgarian Parliament, with cross-party support, swiftly abolished a special tariff on Russian transit gas this week, after Hungary threatened to veto its Schengen membership bid. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Bulgaria’s decision to impose an additional tax on natural gas transiting through its territory to North Macedonia,
After months of speculation, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto announced that China’s BYD will build its first electric vehicle (EV) factory in Europe in Szeged, south Hungary. The investment value will reach EUR 5bn, significantly more than the EUR 3bn intended for the construction of China’s CATL’s
EU leaders voted to begin accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, at a historic summit in Brussels on Thursday 14 December. The EU meanwhile designated Georgia – also a former Soviet republic – as a candidate for membership, a significant shift in the EU’s level of engagement with post-Soviet states. President
The fourth Budapest Climate Summit on December 4, brought together over 40 speakers from 25 countries to discuss climate change challenges and opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). At the summit, Attila Steiner, Hungary’s State Secretary of Energy and Climate Policy, spoke about Hungary’s achievements in reducing
Hungary’s Indotek Group acquired a 47% stake in the French grocery hypermarket chain Auchan last week. Group founder-owner Daniel Jellinek, one of Hungary’ s richest men, said Auchan could realistically now become a top-three player on the Hungarian retail market. It is currently the ninth largest retail chain in
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has reiterated his stance that Russia’s war with Ukraine is insoluble, stoking fears that he could form part of a pro-Kremlin lobby in the EU. After meeting with Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Fico called the war a “frozen conflict” that cannot be solved
The European Commission (EC) proposed a shortcut for Hungary to nearly EUR 1bn from its revised national recovery plan on Thursday 23 November. The plan details spending for the EU’s one-off supplementary recovery fund, which, like most EU member states, the Hungarian government began to revise in August. The
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’
Hungarian operator 4iG Group revealed a plan to streamline operations and bring in external investors to raise the overall value of the group to HUF400bn (USD 1.15bn). In a statement, 4iG Chairman Gellert Jaszai said: “One of the key objectives of the transformation process is to monetise the excess
Confirming the preliminary expectations, Hungarian energy giant MOL announced in the summer that it will start mining lithium, local business website Portfolio reports. The planning of the project goes back to 2019. In August, MOL Managing Director Gyorgy Bacsa announced that trial lithium extraction would begin next year in the
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
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is becoming increasingly diversified, ING Bank writes in a new report on Poland, Czechia, Romania and Hungary. This diversification includes economic outlooks, inflation profiles and reaction functions of central banks, the Dutch bank added in its report entitled “One region but very different stories for
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) signing between Hungary’s 4iG and China’s Huawei, both controversial companies close to their respective governments, has provoked anger from the US government. Huawei and 4iG say they want to play a pivotal role in the global race for high-speed 5G data transmission. The
Chinese President Xi Jinping backed elevating relations with Hungary and after meeting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Beijing, called him a “friend”. Viktor Orban previously announced that he signed ten economic agreements in Beijing, where he arrived on Sunday to participate in the third summit of the One Belt,