Bulgaria
Hackers target Bulgaria’s revenue agency, accessing millions of financial records
The hackers accessed the system of Bulgaria’s tax agency, revealing tax declarations, personal identification numbers, names, addresses, income and other information, which were leaked to the media from a Russian email address.
COMMENT: Southeast Europe the growth star in CEE banking, but the profit pool is elsewhere
The core message for bankers and investors active in the CEE region should be: close to old records, potential for more but watch out for late cycle phenomena.
Fastest shrinking EU states are from Southeast Europe and the Baltics
States across Central and Southeast Europe are experiencing a long-term population decline due to a combination of low birth rates and mass emigration.
BALKAN BLOG: Balkan divisions on display at bad-tempered Sarajevo summit
The brawl at Sarajevo airport between Bosnian border guards and Turkish President Erdogan’s security was the only time things turned physical, but it came on top of a whole series of acrimonious verbal clashes between Southeast European politicians.
Central European economies decouple from Eurozone slowdown
Economists from wiiw have revised upwards their forecasts for Central and Southeast European economies as wage-driven growth has stopped them from following the eurozone into a slowdown.
Central, Eastern and Southeast European sovereigns to return to debt markets on large scale in 2020, Raiffeisen says
Governments of Central and Southeast Europe have already secured most of the funding they need for this year, but with more obligations maturing in 2020 they are expected to return to the markets on a large scale next year
Rainbow flag flies over CEE, but attitudes to LGBT vary vastly
North Macedonia held its first ever gay pride march on June 29 with up to 1,000 people attending the event. There were pride marches in nearly all the CEE countries but the experience in each country is vastly different.
BALKAN BLOG: Apathy greets suspected top-level coverup in Bulgaria
When Bulgaria’s anti-corruption body found no signs of irregularity in the “Apartmentgate” scandal, it raised concerns about institutional independence, but most people lacked the energy to protest.
Czech energy company CEZ exits Bulgaria, faces a lawsuit from the Pirates at home
The Czech state-owned energy company CEZ Group sold its assets in Bulgaria to the local Eurohold company for €335mn after an earlier deal was blocked by regulators.
Demographic “tipping point” imminent for CEE labour markets
The ‘tipping point’ at which labour demand will become equal to labour supply is just two years away in the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Poland, says a new study from wiiw.