Page 7 - bne_newspaper_September_08_2017

The Regions This Week
September 8, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Southeast Europe
Serbia’s central bank cut its monetary policy
interest rate by 25bps to 3.75%. The policy rate has been held constant at 4% since July 2016. Prior to that it was cut by 1.25pp in five steps starting from August 2015.
The Hungarian government suspended its support for Romania’s OECD accession, after the Romanian authorities blocked plans to set up a Catholic high school in Romania’s Targu Mures, a town inhabited by a large number of ethnic Hungarians.
In a similar development between another two neighbours, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic appealed to Slovenia to stop "blackmailing" Croatia and support the country's accession to the OECD. Ljubljana said it could not support Croatia's candidacy after Zagreb refused to implement a recent border arbitration ruling.
The Macedonian economy shrank by a real 1.8% y/y in the second quarter of 2017, compared
to zero growth in the previous quarter, an estimate from the statistics office said. The figure was expected bearing in mind the lengthy political crisis in the country, which ended with the formation of a new government led by the Social Democrats at the end of May.
Paris threatened to restore its visa regime for Albanians to prevent Albanian criminal gangs from operating in France. Last month, Dutch police asked their government to take the same step because of the growing problem of crimes committed by Albanian gangs.
Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov ordered an investigation into Bulgaria’s representative on
the EBRD board of directors over suspicions he was involved in the "Azerbaijani laundromat". Kalin Mitrev was named in an investigation published by The Guardian earlier this week.
The Albanian government aims to boost GDP growth to over 5% by 2019, aided by planned steps to cut red tape for businesses. The country’s economy expanded by 3.46% in 2016 and growth is expected to range between 3.5% and 3.8% in 2017.
Bosnia’s Sarajevo Stock Exchange joined the SEE Link network, which connects exchanges from Southeast European countries. Bosnia’s other bourse, the Banja Luka Stock Exchange, joined the network earlier this year.
Bosnia appealed to the European parliament to
demand Croatia halt the planned construction of the Peljesac Bridge. The 2.4km bridge will connect the Croatian mainland with the Peljesac peninsula, bypassing Bosnian territory, but Sara- jevo says it will prevent large ships from entering Neum, its only sea port.
Sentiment towards migrants is overwhelmingly negative in Macedonia, Montenegro, Hungary and several other Eastern European countries. The Migrant Acceptance Index created by pollster Gallup found a sharp divide between Eastern and Western Europe in attitudes to migrants.
Moldova’s government and president clashed
over plans for soldiers to take part in a military exercise in Ukraine. Pro-Russian President Igor Dodon banned Moldovan military staff from taking part, but the government insists they will attend the exercise.
x3 PER WEEK EDITOR'S PICKS
Keep up to date with our editor's picks email. Sign up to receive a free email three times a week listing the best stories on bne's website, chosen by the editor. Sign up by filling out the form here.
Or go to bne.eu/welcome to see samples of this and other products.