What Italian espresso bars and their cheap coffee can teach businesses about keeping things simple: Do just one thing, and do it very well. Bardonecchia, an hour and a half on the train from Turin, just a few hundred metres from the French border, is a fairly standard Italian ski … | Continue reading
Harm reduction is not a lowering of standards or moral compromise; it is the standard itself, once the illusion of purity has been removed. The argument over how society should respond to addiction is usually framed in medical or political terms, but beneath it lies a moral dispu … | Continue reading
Climate leadership requires more than just ambition. Targets need to be supported by stable, investor-grade frameworks, says Timur Tillyaev. Europe’s climate credentials are, in theory, unmatched. The European Green Deal, the ‘Fit for 55’ package, and a series of national net-zer … | Continue reading
The case for institutionalising long-term thinking in government is growing, but the results of experiments carried out so far are mixed. The Welsh government’s Future Generations Commissioner publishes an annual report, and the 2025 edition runs to 147 pages. It covers climate t … | Continue reading
We wanted smarter legal tech, but instead got an expensive dependency. The legal industry poured billions into artificial intelligence with a seductive promise: faster reviews, leaner operations, sharper insights. What it got, increasingly, looks like the same old work wearing a … | Continue reading
The case for small, agile allies: Strategic realism for a paradigm of distributed deterrence. There is a compelling and underappreciated case for prioritising smaller, agile partners within the architecture of American alliances. The pull toward large, economically powerful partn … | Continue reading
Hungary’s election result is a gift for investors, if the new government can deliver swift reform. In the end, it wasn’t even close. After sixteen years in office, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party was trounced in a parliamentary election in Hungary on April 12, winning just 55 seats i … | Continue reading
The Last Word: Work is no longer about location A few weeks ago, I listened to yet another office-versus-remote panel discussion and had the distinct feeling of watching executives argue over the seating plan on a ship whose engine had already been replaced. The familiar position … | Continue reading
Inside Lithuania’s push to build entrepreneurs before they graduate. Education systems across Europe are under pressure to keep pace with rapid technological change. Estonia, for example, is introducing artificial intelligence into classrooms through a nationwide initiative, whil … | Continue reading
Europe and Central Asia’s governments are spending more than ever on steering their economies. They are mostly pointing in the wrong direction. The World Bank rarely minces its words. Its spring economic update for Europe and Central Asia (ECA), published on April 8, delivered a … | Continue reading
Ranked 32nd out of 32 countries, Tajikistan’s IT sector barely exists. Recent digital governance initiatives at least suggest ambition. Tajikistan occupies an unenviable position: dead last in Reinvantage’s IT Competitiveness Index, ranking 32nd out of 32 countries and trailing B … | Continue reading
Armenia’s economy is thriving as it loosens ties with Russia and looks towards Brussels. That may be no coincidence. It was, even by the standards of what passes as Kremlin diplomacy, an extraordinary piece of theatre. On April 1, Vladimir Putin sat across from Nikol Pashinyan, A … | Continue reading
The Last Word: Readiness beats past performance. It is still considered good management to hit your numbers. Revenue targets met, costs controlled, margins protected, the dashboard glowing green, the board reassured that performance is on track. It all looks sensible, disciplined … | Continue reading
Hungary’s exhausted growth model may depend on a change of government to get moving again. For a country that built its modern economic identity on luring foreign factories, Hungary finds itself in a peculiar bind. The factories came and unemployment fell. And then the model, lik … | Continue reading
Europe throws billions at its defence sector. Ukraine’s kitchen-table innovators are already cashing in. Great news for Ukrainian housewives. The European Commission this week approved a 1.5 billion euros work programme under its European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP), and 26 … | Continue reading
The Last Word: When predictability becomes the product. In a hall full of global executives in Beijing last week, the pitch was not what it used to be. No talk of breakneck growth, no grand promises of limitless expansion. Instead, China’s premier, Li Qiang, offered something mor … | Continue reading
With ICT exports at 5.02 per cent of GDP and value added at 8.51 per cent, Serbia has built the Balkans’ most export-oriented tech sector. Serbia has assembled one of the region’s most impressive tech sectors. ICT exports reached 5.02 per cent of GDP in 2024—the second-highest am … | Continue reading
Artificial intelligence was supposed to make work fairer. New data suggest it may do the opposite. When Anne, a data entry clerk, watched an IBM PC arrive on her desk in 1986, her job was gone within a year. Four decades on, a social-media manager watches ChatGPT draft the posts … | Continue reading
The EU’s new deals with Australia are really about minerals, missiles, and the retreat of American reliability. In September 2021, France recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra after Australia cancelled a 56 billion euros submarine contract in favour of a nuclear d … | Continue reading
The M&A risk of confusing market velocity with marketing capability. During the dot-com boom, an entire generation of technology marketers briefly concluded they were geniuses. Campaigns worked. Brands scaled overnight. Valuations soared on the back of market energy that felt, in … | Continue reading
Founders who delay monetisation think they are being patient. Andrew Wrobel’s new book argues they are being shaped. Ask a founder to pitch their start-up and the words tend to come quickly. The product, its features, the roadmap, the competition. Andrew Wrobel has heard hundreds … | Continue reading
The Last Word: Companies must change to stay relevant. For years, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland and Romania have occupied a flattering place in Europe’s economic imagination: diligent improvers, able manufacturers, reliable beneficiaries of integration. It is not a false story—over t … | Continue reading
Policymakers obsess over trade agreements. Traders care about markets and logistics, says Timur Tillyaev. Trade policy is increasingly linked with international diplomacy. Governments debate tariffs, free trade agreements, and strategic corridors as if commerce were mainly a matt … | Continue reading
Policymakers obsess over trade agreements. Traders care about markets and logistics. Trade policy is increasingly linked with international diplomacy. Governments debate tariffs, free trade agreements, and strategic corridors as if commerce were mainly a matter of international r … | Continue reading
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has turbocharged Poland’s tech sector. Sustaining momentum once the war ends is another matter. Poland, its IT sector at least, has been a beneficiary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since 2022, the country has absorbed Ukrainian IT specialists, host … | Continue reading
Romania’s two decades of income catch-up are under threat from a fiscal deficit that would give most finance ministers nightmares. In 2025, Romania finally joined the Schengen Area, a milestone that felt to many Romanians like belated acknowledgement of the country’s transformati … | Continue reading
Fifteenth edition of the Pricing Pulse documents a market stabilising in traditional service categories while fragmenting around generative AI-assisted review—with direct implications for budgeting, vendor selection, and matter economics. ComplexDiscovery OÜ, in partnership with … | Continue reading
Turkish Airlines is currently the biggest winner of the US and Israeli war on Iran. The airline disruption caused by the US and Israeli war on Iran is enormous. Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways, hitherto the holy trinity of East-West transit, have been hamstrung by attacks on t … | Continue reading
The productivity gap that Central Europe can no longer ignore. For three decades, Central and Eastern Europe had a growth model that worked. Low(er) labour costs, proximity to Western markets, and a steady flow of EU structural funds drew foreign factories and investment. Incomes … | Continue reading
The AI literacy gap is now a security and compliance liability. The vulnerability didn’t announce itself. It arrived quietly—in employees feeding confidential documents into unauthorised chatbots, in courtrooms demanding accountability for AI-generated legal submissions, and in s … | Continue reading
Hungary’s opposition leads by double digits. The system Orbán built may yet save him. Péter Magyar (pictured above, in the white shirt) has not always been the leader of Hungary’s opposition. A former member of Hungary’s governing party Fidesz and the ex-husband of former justice … | Continue reading
Albania’s coders are plugging Germany’s tech talent gap. Christian Dölker, a German entrepreneur based in Tirana, has spent the past three years persuading German companies that Albania’s IT sector is a serious nearshoring destination. His firm, Hyretech, has signed up clients in … | Continue reading
Europe and Central Asia’s women are better educated than its men. Getting a decent job is another matter. In many countries across Europe and Central Asia, women now outperform men at university. They enrol in higher numbers, they graduate in higher numbers, and in some cases the … | Continue reading
Lithuania’s start-up scene is driving the country’s economy forwards. In Lithuania there is a saying: “I trust the next chapter, because I am the author.” This mentality and desire to solve problems, find solutions and create companies is alive and well in the burgeoning Lithuani … | Continue reading
An international investor reflects on Spain’s strategic role at the intersection of policy, capital and energy transition. As a foreign investor in the European energy transition, Spain is impossible to ignore. The country’s rapid adoption of renewable energy has attracted signif … | Continue reading
Ulaanbaatar has digitised government services impressively. Building an export-oriented IT sector is another matter. Mongolia has achieved something remarkable: it has leapfrogged directly to digital governance without first building the underlying tech sector one might expect to … | Continue reading
AI ethics collide with national security. The showdown between Anthropic and the US government began as a contract negotiation and has quickly turned into a test case for how far Washington will push commercial AI developers in the name of national security—and how hard a leading … | Continue reading
Ukraine’s reconstruction bill has reached 588 billion US dollars. There was, predictably and with good reason, a glut of articles in the global press last week marking the four years since Russia began its brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Most focused on Ukraine’s remarkabl … | Continue reading
Europe risks widening space gap despite investment rebound. Growing defence spending, Europe’s push for greater strategic resilience amid shifting US policy, and increasing demand for commercial space applications are creating new opportunities for European start-ups. However, Eu … | Continue reading
Baltic VCs partner to fuel 100 new start-ups. Who do these kids think they are, dropping out of college, vibecoding, and starting tech companies before they’re 25? Apparently, they think they’re the next unicorns, and they may be right. According to a recent report, the average a … | Continue reading
Albania’s IT sector has built a credible nearshoring proposition, with over 21,000 professionals delivering software development, QA, DevOps, and UI/UX services to Western European clients. IT services exports reached 221.5 million euros in 2024, and the sector is moving beyond s … | Continue reading
With three unicorns and the region’s best business environment, Lithuania rivals much larger economies. Lithuania does not accept mediocrity. With barely 2.8 million people, the country has produced three unicorns—Vinted, Baltic Classifieds Group, and Nord Security—and hosts over … | Continue reading
The auto parts aftermarket is thriving on Europe’s ageing fleet, and the EV transition might only make it stronger. A mechanic with a Volkswagen on the lift cannot wait three weeks for a brake disc. That simple truth has made Armtek, a distributor founded by brothers Vadim and Ol … | Continue reading
EDPB and EDPS weigh in on the Digital Omnibus. The European Union’s move to modernise its digital legal framework is currently centered on the Digital Omnibus, a legislative package aimed at reducing administrative burdens and enhancing the continent’s economic competitiveness. I … | Continue reading
The Fourth Law secures strategic investment to accelerate drone AI development for Ukraine. The Fourth Law (TFL), a Kyiv-headquartered defence technology company, has secured a new round of funding backed by Axon, the American public safety technology group. TFL builds AI and rob … | Continue reading
How Tbilisi threw away its greatest strategic asset. For three decades, Georgia held a geographic trump card (no pun intended) that no amount of money could buy. It was the only country connecting Europe to Central Asia that did not involve crossing Russian or Iranian territory. … | Continue reading
CEOs in Central and Eastern Europe are focussing on short-term growth, PwC’s latest survey finds. CEOs in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are showing renewed short-term confidence in revenue growth, bucking a global trend of declining CEO optimism. But there’s more caution over … | Continue reading
Two unicorns and a growing tech sector suggest the country means business. Gaps remain. Croatia has produced something rare in the Balkans: two genuine unicorns. Infobip, the communications platform, and Rimac Automobili, the electric hypercar manufacturer, have put the country o … | Continue reading