In early May, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Europe for the first time since 2019. The destinations of the visit were France, Hungary and Serbia. China sought to improve its relationship with Europe, but relations remain tense.
Exorbitant international B2B payment transfers are a barrier to cross-border trade for enterprises in the Western Balkans, a World Bank analysis shows.
Hudson Institute says move towards secession could in turn spark broader ethnic conflicts in Balkans.
Under the influence of electoral calculations for the year 2024, political processes in Georgia and Moldova have acquired a geopolitical component of significant proportions.
Eastern EU members are growing much faster than the eurozone, but must focus more on innovation for a full catchup.
Apathy and lack of trust in national institutions, combined with ‘convergence fatigue’, have created favourable conditions for populist forces that have degraded the quality of institutions in many of the CEE states that joined the EU in 2004.
Although Armenia and Azerbaijan are now the closest they have been to signing a peace treaty in the last 30 years, there is a high probability that it will not be signed.
While digital infrastructure in the region is growing, support infrastructure designed to handle the growth in demand is what requires investment.
There is “scant hope” of Belgrade and Pristina overcoming their difficulties and normalising relations, says a new Crisis Group report.
The destabilisation of Eastern Europe created a paradigm shift in terms of EU enlargement.
The economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), which experienced a period of stagnation last year, are poised for a modest revival in 2024, but both the Russian and Turkish economies are already overheating.
Hungarian PM Viktor Orban’s close ties with leaders of Serbia and Bosnia’s Republika Srpska have encouraged nationalism and authoritarian tendencies with negative consequences for stability, says paper published by EPC.
Milojko Spajic's government tries to seize window of opportunity, but still risks derailment by domestic political conflicts.
Candidate states for EU accession such as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia remain in a zone of insecurity where Russia can intervene minimally in a hybrid way.
Albania has been transformed from an isolated country whose name evoked poverty, drugs and crime to an increasingly prominent player on the world stage.
Moldova and Montenegro already targets of Russian destabilisation efforts, says RUSI report.