EU and G7 tankers facilitating Russian oil exports, report finds
A new report has found that EU countries are facilitating circumventing oil sanctions against Russia on a grand scale.Greek-owned ships in particular stand out, and have transported nearly a third of all Russian oil shipments between December 2022 (when the oil cap was implemented) and the end of July. Published by: euobserver.com
Why Greek state workers are protesting new labour law
Thousands of Greek public sector workers have marched towards the Greek parliament to protest against proposed changes to the country’s labour laws by the conservative government of prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.The one-day strike, on Thursday (21 September), was prompted by a parliamentary discussion over a new labour law. One that comes as the government’s (delayed)…
Maintaining Relationships
Alexander Manolev, the Bulgarian deputy minister of economy, speaks to Andrew Wrobel about the country’s stability and potential.Andrew Wrobel (AW):In April 2016, I spoke to Bojidar Loukarsky, the then minister of economy, who told me that Bulgaria was an island of stability in Europe. Is it still?Alexander Manolev (AM): It is, and several facts strongly…
Feeling Good: FDI in Bulgaria
Bulgaria has seen a significant rise in foreign direct investments since its accession to the EU. But what have investors told us about the business climate in the country?According to preliminary data from the Bulgarian National Bank, Bulgaria received 158.8 million euros in foreign direct investments (FDI) in January 2018 alone, a 64.7 per cent…
Emerging Europe is the future of the Old Continent
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, when emerging European countries began implementing market economy principles, the region was seen as a low-cost manufacturing destination. Fast forward three decades and most of emerging Europe is no longer a synonym for cheap labour. For example, since 2010, salaries in Romania — one of the three youngest…
China’s OBOR initiative: Opportunities for the South Caucasus
The South Caucasus has a strategic locational advantage by connecting Europe with Asia and the Middle East. After the collapse of the Soviet Union three internationally recognised independent states – Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia – emerged in the region and all three pursues distinctively different foreign policy goals since their inception.ArmeniaDue to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenia has no relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey and…
Georgia seeks to become a sustainable maritime hub
Georgia continues to strengthen its role as a transport hub between Europe and Asia. “Our railways are a crucial part of our transportation system and we are now looking at offering a multi-modal system,” Ivane Abashidze, deputy director at the Maritime Transport Agency of the Georgian Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development, tells Emerging Europe.The…
Autarchy and nationalism are not the right solutions
The western model, based on the care of democracy and the capitalist economic system, was the foundation on which the countries of central and eastern Europe were rebuilt after the fall of communism in 1989. The democratic and economic gap between the former communist countries and those which had already consolidated democracy (such as the…
Albania’s many EU challenges
Detailing the challenges Albania faces in its EU accession process may seem like an insurmountable task for a short opinion piece, but in considering some often overlooked concepts we can gain a better understanding of the situation. The tendency to focus solely on EU accession criteria and conditions has created a myopic view of Albania’s…
Throughout emerging Europe, civil society is more important than ever
The concept of civil society is a product imported into Latvia in the 1990s. It was rooted into the idea that democracy could be stabilised by promoting people’s self-organisational skills. First of all, this way the atomising influence of communism would be reduced and a healthy “moral infrastructure” restored quickly; secondly, it would become possible…