Under favourable external conditions, the economies of the New EU Member States (NMS) fared even better in the first quarter of 2006 than in 2005. Investment accelerated sharply and industry is proving buoyant. Labour productivity has registered strong gains, unit labour costs declined. This is...

Ukraine's recent political developments have been rather turbulent and their effects on the economy controversial. The economy was rapidly growing between 2000 and 2004, albeit starting from a very low base. Among the growth factors were the devaluation of the hryvnia in 1999, the rising demand...

Fast economic growth - in excess of 5% per year - continues in most New EU Member States (NMS). Growth in Bulgaria and Romania (which joined the EU on 1 January 2007) was also accelerating throughout 2006. Everywhere, except Hungary, GDP growth has been driven predominantly by domestic demand....

The 1st of May 2007 marked the third anniversary of the accession of the new member states (NMS) to the European Union the economic balance of the first three years is a clear success for the whole EU. Over the period 2001-2003 GDP in the NMS had increased by 3.1% per year on average; over the...

The Black Sea region comprises a heterogeneous group of countries Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. Their economies differ in their size, institutional characteristics and integration perspectives, are facing vastly different problems, and find...

Russia and four other CIS countries - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - are important energy producers and possess substantial reserves, particularly as far as natural gas is concerned. Russia alone accommodates about one quarter of the global gas reserves and has established...

Ukraine was confronted with an unprecedented economic and financial crisis during 2008-2009. That crisis has until recently been compounded by a highly unstable political situation. The European Union, Ukraine's neighbours and the international community have been concerned about possible...

The objective of this study is to analyse employment developments in the gas and electricity sectors in seven Western Balkan Contracting Parties of the Energy Community. These are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo...

A functioning Belarus-Russia-Kazakhstan Customs Union (BRK-CU) would comprise the bulk of the FSU economy and represent a significant step towards an attempted re-integration of the FSU – even more so if Ukraine were also to join. There are still important structural differences in...

Countries belonging to the European neighbourhood are highly diverse. Their diversity is multidimensional (geographical, socio-economic, political, cultural, religious, etc.) and the individual dimensions all have important implications for EU policies towards the region(s), for EU institutional...