Page 25 - bne Magazine February 2023

bne February 2023 Companies & Markets I 25
"A single member state chose to ignore the reality and blocked the European unanimity, in a way that was inexplicable and difficult to understand by the entire European Union. The regrettable and unjustified attitude of Austria in today's meeting risks affecting European unity and cohesion, which we need so much, especially in the current geopolitical context,” he said.
The Austrian ambassador in Bucharest was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which said it considers Vienna's attitude against Romania's Schengen bid "inadmissible, unjustified and unfriendly".
"This will have inevitable consequences on bilateral relations," according to a statement from the ministry.
Most Bulgarian politicians, albeit unhappy with their rejection, appeared to accept the decision as fair. Most of the blame in Sofia was cast internally, with politicians blaming each other for the situation.
One exception was Stefan Yanev, the leader of the smallest
party in Bulgaria’s parliament, Bulgarian Ascend, who called for boycott of the Netherlands.
Vassil Vassilev, chairman of the Association of the Industrial Capital in Bulgaria (AIKB), an organisation that includes many big companies, said the decision of the Netherlands to separate Bulgaria from Croatia and Romania was unacceptable.
In an open letter, AIKB called on the government, the president and the parliament to summon the Bulgarian ambassador to the Netherlands – a symbolic gesture that would show the country cannot be “taught” in this way.
Like Yanev, AIKB wants the Bulgarian authorities to apply reciprocity, by boycotting the Netherlands in every possible way. Moreover, AIKB believes that Bulgarians should stop buying Dutch products and stop tourist trips to the country, while students should stop attending universities in the Netherlands. However, this seems highly unlikely to be accepted seriously by the majority of Bulgarians, who enjoy travelling to Amsterdam, while students prefer the universities there due to the reasonable fees and good living conditions.
Serbia reports massive cyberattack on interior ministry
bne IntelliNews
The website and IT infrastructure of Serbia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs have been targeted by cyberattacks for the last 48 hours, the Serbian government said in a statement on January 7.
The attacks followed a previous attack on the defence ministry website, which was claimed by Anonymous, the world’s largest hacker collective.
Serbia’s government said on January 7: “the [interior] ministry's website and IT infrastructure have been constantly under a massive DDoS attack for the last 48 hours, and so far five large attacks aimed at disabling the IT infrastructure of the Ministry of Interior have been repelled.”
Ministry IT experts worked with those from Serbia Telecom to repel the attacks.
The ministry has activated enhanced security protocols to protect its data which, the official statement warned, can lead to slower work and occasional interruptions of certain services.
Anonymous has continued its criticism of Serbia over its failure to take a stance against Russia over the invasion of Ukraine in the last couple of days.
“Serbia is Russian backdoor to Europe and needs to be fixed,” said a post on the Anonymous Operations Twitter account. Another criticised Serbia for not recognising the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Earlier in the week, the collective stated its intention to target Serbian government infrastructure. “#Anonymous has launched #OpSerbia taking numerous government websites down the past few days. Targeting government infrastructure,” said a tweet from the Anonymous Operations Twitter account.
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