To avert the possible blocking of EU funds because of rule-of-law deficits, the Hungarian government has been given more time. On Thursday, member states decided to extend Budapest’s deadline by two months to December 19. The right-wing populist government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán must implement 17 measures in order to receive a total of […]
The Western Balkans route from Greece via northern Macedonia and Serbia to Hungary and Austria is back in the headlines for the first time since the refugee crisis peaked. The issue is on the agenda of EU Interior Ministers in Luxembourg this Friday. “In Austria, we are likely to reach the same number of illegal […]
Prime Minister, how much does the Ukraine war threaten stability and peace in the Balkans?Edi Rama: It is a potential threat to our region. Because Russia has traditionally had a strong influence in parts of the Balkan. This is particularly true of Serbia, Montenegro, northern Macedonia, and the Republic of Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina.What does this […]
The electricity price brake adopted by the Austrian government under Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) is earning little applause. Economists warn that the black-green coalition in Vienna is pursuing too loose a spending policy to deal with the energy crisis. “The government is opening a door that can no longer be closed. The electricity bill cap […]
Austria’s largest energy supplier Wien Energie is facing financial disaster. The company has unexpected financial needs of up to €6 billion. Due to failed futures transactions on the stock exchange, the company of the city of Vienna needed financial guarantees of at least €2 billion in the first attempt on Tuesday to avoid insolvency and […]
Bulgaria is fighting for its political stability. The EU country will elect a new parliament at the beginning of October – for the fourth time since spring 2021. In June 2022, the liberal-social democratic coalition of Prime Minister Kiril Petkov broke apart after only half a year. President Rumen Radev then appointed a transitional government […]
The Czech Republic and Slovakia still see themselves as a political tandem. Their common history in the former Czechoslovakia unites them in foreign policy to this day. The heads of government of the two countries have therefore commemorated the 54th anniversary of the invasion of the then Soviet Union in a joint message.They took the […]
Mikuláš Bek is a member of the liberal center-right movement “Mayors and Independents” (Starostové a nezávislí – STAN). The musicologist served as director of Masaryk University in Brno from 2011 to 2019. Bek speaks fluent German, and studied at Berlin’s Humboldt University as a doctoral student in 1990. Since 2018, the 58-year-old has been a […]
In Germany, political attention is currently still focused primarily on galloping gas prices. But Austria is already a step ahead because electricity prices have risen sharply. The government in Vienna is planning concrete steps to get retail electricity prices under control. “Our model is to support basic household consumption with a capped electricity price. In […]
In the discussion on future own resources, the EU Commission criticizes the continued reluctance of member states. “We haven’t really gotten off the ground yet. Even though the EU Parliament is very committed, there is still room for improvement among the heads of state and government of the member countries,” EU Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn […]