Southeast & Eastern Europe

For the Ukrainian energy sector, the beginning of the year was marked by the “Ukrainian Green Deal” proposal developed by the Ministry of energy and environmental protection. According to the Ministry’s vision for 2050 presented draft Green Energy Transition concept, Ukraine is set to step on the energy transition pathway and actively develop energy efficiency measures, phase out fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy sources (RES). But when it comes to near-term plans, further investments of public funds in nuclear and gas projects are still being considered by the government.

President Vladimir Putin is facing the greatest challenge of his political career: the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Russia is expected to peak in the next few weeks. Johannes Voswinkel, Head of our Moscow office, reports on timid action, an unexpected crisis manager and the fears of breaking into the reserves.

The three countries of the South Caucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, have so far dealt with the corona crisis relatively well, as they started early to close state institutions and shut down public life. The governments of the three countries’ were aware of the threat that their health systems could collapse because of a rapid increase of infections.

February 2020 will be written into the modern political history of Slovakia as a month with a great turning point which combined in a special way two dramatic themes in the internal political development of the country.

Iryna Holovko, board member of the Center for Environmental Initiatives “Ecoaction”, talks with Robert Sperfeld about the issue of climate protection within Ukrainian society.  

Simon Ilse, head of our Belgrade office, talks with the future Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, about his future government’s priorities, the dialogue with Serbia, his green agenda, and addresses the issue of ethnicity vs nationality in the Balkans.

The Hungarian Government’s asylum policy can be summed up in three principles: deny, deter, deprive. Over the past four years, these principles have led to the dismantling of the Hungarian asylum system. Three distinct junctures can help us understand the current situation and how it came about. Each raises serious concerns on its own and taken together, they completely hollow out the right to seek asylum.

Gergely Karácsony, the new Mayor of Budapest, was elected by more than 50 percent of the vote on the 13th of October. In addition to winning the race for the mayorship, the opposition now has a majority in the Budapest City Council too. This was not just an important victory for the green politician, but for the whole opposition, which after a 13-year spell of political setbacks  won not just many districts in Budapest, but also several key cities across the country. We spoke with the newly-elected Mayor of Budapest about the current state of the Hungarian green movement and the possible strategies for the opposition.

On October 13, local government elections will be held in Hungary. No election campaign has ever been as rude as this one. Who will benefit from this phenomenon?

After the rejection of László Trócsányi, the first candidate of the illiberal Hungarian PM for the European Commission, the country’s acting ambassador to the EU, Olivér Várhelyi, was soon afterwards nominated by Viktor Orbán to the position.