The recent proposal by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso’s to close Croatia’s four remaining accession chapters, and setting July 1 2013 as a tentative accession date, reaffirms our long-held view that Croatia will join the EU by 2013. However, there remain a number of obstacles on the road to full EU membership. The proposal… [Read more]
On this week’s Business Monitor Podcast, we revisit Central and Eastern Europe and our core macroeconomic strategy favouring Turkey and Poland. Has the region shaken off the structural imbalances which made it a focal point of crisis risks or is the positive convergence story no longer a core defining feature for the growth outlook? BMI’s… [Read more]
On November 12, Business Monitor International hosted a major investors’ conference on the risks, opportunities and outlook for emerging markets over the coming decade. Justin Patrie talks with senior BMI strategists Terry Alexander and Tim Cooper about some of the themes and surprises that emerged from the conference. Highlighted topics include EM outperformance, structural drivers… [Read more]
On Monday, November 9, much of Europe will be celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the catalyst it provided for the collapse of Communism on the continent. BMI’s Justin Patrie explains the significance of this event for Emerging Europe, and what the outlook is for the next 20 years… [Read more]
Convergence – the process by which less developed economies ‘catch-up’ with their more developed peers through rapid improvements in productivity – has been the dominant story throughout Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) for the better part of two decades now. Certainly, it is the prevalent model by which most analysts expect the Western Balkans to… [Read more]
The unsurprising landslide victory of the opposition GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) party in Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections on Sunday (July 5) could prove to be the sea-change which many ordinary Bulgarians have been desperately waiting for. In the aftermath of the elections, I believe that the overwhelming support for the three-year old centre-right… [Read more]
