Sandy Gill in Sofia
Fri, 24th May -- It might be the start of a solution in Bulgaria, if it isn't the start of new problems. On May 23, Plamen Oresharski became the "technocrat" tasked with putting together a "programme government of experts" in the wake of Bulgaria's early elections held on May 12 - elections precipitated by mass street protests and producing a complicated result.

bne
Fri, 24th May -- Herbert Stepic, the chief executive of Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), offered his resignation on May 24, according to a statement issued by the bank. The move follows reports earlier this week that Stepic used letterbox firms in offshore centres for property deals that he did not report to his employer.

Graham Stack in Kyiv
Fri, 24th May -- An address in London's Tooley Street hosts the business empire of mysterious Ukrainian MP Yury Ivanyuschenko - and a multitude of even murkier companies with CIS connections. bne follows the trail all the way to Latvia.

bne
Thu, 23rd May -- The plan to build a pan-Baltic nuclear power plant at Visaginas in Lithuania is not economically feasible, and now looks certain to be officially dropped, Estonian power company Eesti Energia said on May 22. The claim keeps the merry-go-round between the three Baltic states on proposed regional projects spinning.

Molly Corso in Tbilisi
Thu, 23rd May -- With just six months before the Georgian presidential election, solid popularity ratings for the Georgian Dream coalition government means its candidate appears poised for victory in October. Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili's choice for the coalition's presidential candidate, however, has added to questions about his own political goals.

David O'Byrne in Istanbul
Thu, 23rd May -- If, as the old adage would have us believe, "It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive", then the visit in mid-May by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Energy Minister Taner Yildiz to Washington can be judged to have been a complete success.

bne
Wed, 22nd May -- As a final decision looms on which pipeline will win the right to carry Azeri gas into Europe, the countries whose territories the Nabucco West gas pipeline will cross adopted a joint declaration on May 21 that suggests the route could be expanded to supply a bigger chunk of CEE.

Ben Aris in Moscow
Wed, 22nd May -- Confusion reigns over what will happen to the Russian economy in due course: is it headed into the "dustbin of history", in Trotsky's immortal phrase, or will it be the fastest growing in Europe by the end of the year?

Ivan Tchakarov of Renaissance Capital
Wed, 22nd May -- Russia seems to have fallen into the middle-income trap as it reaches per-capital income levels of $16k. A slowdown in GDP growth of a similar magnitude to that observed in other economies suffering from the same disease would yield a post-middle-income-trap average growth rate of only 1.6%.

bne
Tue, 21st May -- Continuing the AKP's drive to make Turkey a regional leader, the Turkish government is set to raise a $1bn credit line promised to Egypt this month by a further $250m, a senior official said on May 20.

Ben Aris in Moscow
Tue, 21st May -- When the Soviet Union fell in 1991 and the borders were thrown open to consumer goods, the first thing to arrive from the West, predictably enough, was cigarettes. The second was good shoes. Now Obuv Rossii is looking to become the "Magnit of shoes", following in the footsteps of Russia's super successful supermarket chain.

bne
Mon, 20th May -- Bayerische Landesbank on May 17 denied speculation that it is to be the next foreign investors to leave the Hungarian banking sector via a sale of its local subsidiary MKB Bank to the country's largest bank OTP.