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The Regions This Week
September 28, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 5
Central Europe
The European Commission took Poland to the Court of Justice of the EU for violating the inde- pendence of the Supreme Court by using new re- tirement regulations to remove 27 Supreme Court judges including the court’s president. The move will add more tension to the already strained relationship between the European Union and the populist Law and Justice government.
CzechToll and SkyToll will develop a new high- way toll system in Czechia, under a deal signed with the transport ministry. Unsuccessful bidder Kapsch contested the deal.
Pope Francis became an e-resident of Estonia
during his visit to the Baltic state. World leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were previ- ously given Estonian e-residency.
Polish digital bank Horum Bank will enter Lithu- ania. One of the blockchain-based bank’s found- ers, Michal Turalski, confirmed to BNS Lithuania that it will apply for a license from the Bank of Lithuania in the near future.
The Latvian government approved an action plan for a more efficient fight against money laun- dering. The plan follows the evaluation of Latvia’s efforts to combat money laundering, which the Council of Europe’s Moneyval Committee pub- lished in July in the wake of events that led to the closing of Latvia’s third largest bank ABLV.
Several of Hungary’s largest companies are re- locating to new headquarters. The new HUF50bn (€154mn) headquarters of Magyar Telekom was completed, and two more of the top four compa- nies on the Budapest Stock Exchange, OTP and MOL, are also moving to new premises.
The ECB said measures applied against the governor of Latvijas Bank were overkill. Ilmars Rimsevics was suspended earlier this year follow-
ing charges he took bribes from a Russia-linked bank in order to help its business in Latvia, but the EBC says the measures taken disregarded the constitutional independence of the Baltic state’s central bank.
Up to two-thirds of companies in Slovakia want to expand their R&D activities. One of the main motivations is higher tax deductions, a Deloitte survey conducted in cooperation with the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency (SARIO) reads.
Hungary has missed its recycling targets "by a considerable margin" since 2012, the European Commission said in a report. Hungary was among 14 European Union member states the EC said are at risk of missing the target for recycling half of all waste by 2020, but the country was singled out, together with Malta, for the most sizeable shortfalls. Hungary is the only country to fail to reach the targets since 2012.
An investment vehicle owned by Czech/Slovak billionaires Patrik Tkac and Daniel Kretinsky bought a 3.6% share in Metro AG, the third big- gest European retail chain, from Ceconomy AG. Tkac and Kretinsky hold a 10.9% share in Metro at the moment, but have options to acquire more than 30% of the shares.
Drought in the Czech Republic cost farmers around CZK11bn-CZK12bn (approximately €450mn), the Czech Agricultural Minister Miroslav Toman told journalists. “We would like to compen- sate farmers as much as possible,” Toman added.
The volume of new loans and leases made
to Estonian companies grew 7% y/y in August, according to data released by Eesti Pank. The growth in lending is a reflection of companies’ returning to investment, which, alongside private consumption, strengthened by rising incomes, is a key driver of currently solid economic growth.