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bne September 2018 Southeast Europe I 47
and attacks on civil society. Last month the European Commission launched an infringement procedure against Hungar- ian legislation dubbed “Stop Soros”. Hungary will also be referred to the
officials in Brussels try to call either state to account. Budapest has made it clear that it would veto any decisions to penalise Poland by stripping Warsaw of its voting rights, and the Polish govern-
spring 2017. But the government pressed on, and eventually fatigue meant that protester numbers fell – even on August 10 they didn’t reach the hundreds of thousands seen in early 2017.
The PSD and its allies are relatively secure in their majority in both houses of parliament, and may have assumed the protests will have subsided sufficiently not to affect their chances when the next general election comes around in late 2020 or early 2021. Anti-corruption pro- testers are more or less by definition not going to be PSD voters in the first place.
This means the PSD most likely is taking the gamble that its tinkering with the judi- cial system and criminal law won’t alienate its support base to the extent that it loses the next election. And while the interna- tional criticism is unwelcome, Brussels has proved itself toothless in similar standoffs with Budapest and Warsaw.
As a result, the Romanian government
– driven by the self-interest of its top politicians rather than illiberal ideol- ogy – is taking its place alongside the challengers to the EU’s value system from CEE. And the bigger the cohort of illiberally minded CEE nations within the EU becomes, the more power it has within a union that is still grappling with Brexit and other crises.
With additional reporting by Ben Aris in Berlin.
“The DNA is the embodiment of the anti-graft efforts”
Court of Justice of the European Union over the country's asylum policies, a European Commission spokesperson said in July.
Despite this, the two countries have continued to defy warnings from Brus- sels. Warsaw is pushing ahead with its challenges to the rule of law, adopting legislation that will make it easier to stack the Supreme Court with PiS loyal- ists and remove the court’s president Malgorzata Gersdorf more quickly. The government in Warsaw, like its coun- terparts in Bucharest, appears to have decided to ride out domestic protests and international criticism rather than engaging or backing down.
Moreover, the Visegrad 4 states have increasingly been acting as a bloc to increase their leverage on issues like migrant quotas, where they have strong differences with the “old” EU members to the west. Poland and Hungary have said they will support each other when
ment returned the favour after the Euro- pean Parliament adopted a resolution to trigger Article 7 against Hungary in May after the government approved contro- versial legislation on asylum seekers and NGOs and the Central European University. Since major decisions like these require unanimity, this means there are no really effective sanctions against infringers.
Even the proposed cuts to cohesion spending for Poland and other CEE countries in the next EU budget, pre- sented as a shift in priorities towards the crisis-hit southern members of the union but perceived as a punishment for the Visegrad 4’s lack of cooperation on refugee quotas, are likely to be softened before the budget is adopted, as this again requires unanimity.
In Romania, international criticism coming on top of the enormous pro- tests managed to act as a check on the government the first time around in
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Avast to enter London bourse in bid to raise up to $1bn Jaroslav Hroch in Prague
Avast, which owns the popular consumer antivirus company AVG, will apply to list its shares on the London Stock Exchange in the hope of raising $200mn (CZK4.1bn) in primary proceeds from an IPO, the Czech-founded company announced on April 12.
See page 2
St Petersburg's start-up scene flourishes on high talent and low costs
Contents
Avast to enter London bourse
in bid to raise up to $1bn 1 Avast to enter London bourse in bid to raise up to $1bn 2 St Petersburg's start-up scene
flourishes on high talent and low costs 3 Romania entrepreneur aims to put home-grown UAV defence technology industry on the map 6
FinTech
Russia's mobile major MTS increases stake in Ozon to 16.7% 9
Blockchain
Romanian startups at the heart
of blockchain energy trading rally 10
Central Europe
Russian-Lithuanian startup Gosu.ai
raises $1.9mn from Russian and
French investors 13
Eurasia
Iran hit by cyber attack that left US
flag on screens 14 Iranian government set to block hugely popular Telegram messaging app 15 Iran's black market phone disconnection drive pushes up legal mobile imports 15
Eastern Europe
Internet catches up with TV on Russian
ad market 17 Sales of connected appliances jump
in Russia 17 Russia's HeadHunter Group seeks
to raise $250mn with NASDAQ IPO 18 Russia ranks second in the world
for digital piracy 18 Russian messaging service Telegram raised another $850mn with ICO 19
Southeast Europe
Russia's HeadHunter Group seeks
to raise $250mn with NASDAQ IPO 20
The Regions This Month 21
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