Features
Highflying Romania starts its descent
Romania's GDP growth outstripped China's last year but the economy is already slowing and with warnings of overheating backed up by rising inflation, the question now is how hard Romania’s landing will be.
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Russian banks out of the woods, but no walk in the park
After more than two decades of “wild cat” banking, the dead wood and dodgy banks have largely been expelled from the sector, which is starting to look increasingly “normal”, but there is still a lot of work to do.
Irish tech titan lines up stake in Slovak AI firm
Pat Phelan is lining up a punt in YouFirst, an innovative Slovak startup that utilises artificial intelligence to track facial expressions of television viewers.
Ukraine's German factories left ticking over on the EU border
Twenty kilometres from the Carpathian city of Uzghorod and barely 2km away from the Slovakian and Hungarian borders the German car plant Eurocar is ticking over waiting for the good times to return.
Erdogan raises a white flag in the lira crisis
As the markets garrotted the lira, Turkey’s president gave up on any idea he had of continuing to stand defiant against an interest rate hike. But if he is re-elected in late June, will the markets trust him to keep a rational hand on the helm?
Czech central bank tightens mortgages rules to pop the nascent housing bubble
The Czech National Bank (CNB) took aggressive actions to burst a potential real estate bubble before it gets too big on June 12 by increasing the banks capital buffer rate to 1.5% effective from July 1, 2019 and tightening mortgage lending policies
Russian dividend stocks are an income winner
Russian stocks are paying the highest dividend yields in the world, and the stocks of the most generous companies handsomely outperform the leading indices.
Belene project creates unholy alliance in Bulgaria
Ruling GERB and opposition Socialists for once united over revival of controversial nuclear power station project and u-turn towards Russia.
Making Russia an e-Republic
Russian president Putin wants the economy to be a global top-5 player. Several of Russia’s largest tech and financial companies have teamed up to deliver on that promise and completely transform the Russian online market.
Ukraine’s M&A market up 57% y/y in 2017 as domestic dealmakers take the lead
Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in Ukraine increased modestly from 41 transactions in 2016 to 44 deals in 2017, but deals soared in terms of value, up 57% to €554mn y/y according to May's report published by Kyiv-based law firm Aequo.
Domestic violence treaty rattles governments across Eastern Europe
The Istanbul Convention has angered conservatives in numerous Central and East European countries, whose antipathy to “gender ideology” has led to high-level political battles as governments that have signed up to the convention attempt to ratify it.
IRI poll paints a pretty grim picture of life and politics in Ukraine
Ukraine has failed to fulfil the promise of the “Revolution of Dignity,” it has lost the young people who won't vote and attitudes to Russia and Nato remain mixed.