Read all posts for ‘Central and Eastern Europe’

10-year old Dayana went out onto a balcony which suddenly collapsed. Her blood splattered all over the yard of the “Youth” tuberculosis sanatorium in Simeyz (on Ukraine’s Сrimean peninsula). After five hours of struggle, the doctors declared her dead. Sounds like a cut from a horror movie, doesn’t it? But […]

There is a striking contrast between the breadth and scope of austerity measures in Europe and citizens’ perceptions of them. I recently moderated a debate organized by the Bertelsmann Foundation on what Europe can learn from Latin America in terms of managing a debt crisis. The audience was composed mostly […]

Even in previous decades during years of high growth, Slovakia still ran up big deficits. To enter the euro area a country has to meet a reasonable set of criteria known as the Maastricht criteria. This means that a country which gives up its local currency must keep its deficit […]

We’ve weathered our first opening up to free trade The first experience of post-communist Slovakia with free markets was a big shock to our uncompetitive and poorly managed companies which failed to rise to the challenge. Over time, they have been replaced by new ones, often with foreign owners – […]

As a European, a tech geek and a fan of free trade I’m all in favour of the proposed EU-US free trade area. But as with any big agreement there are quite a few caveats to be added: net neutrality activists are claiming that TAFTA is just another backdoor for […]