Friday

29th Mar 2024

Ticker

Orban suffers surprise setback at local by-election

Weeks before a general election (8 April), Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orban's ruling Fidesz party suffered an unexpected defeat at a local government by-election on Sunday. The opposition-backed independent but political unknown candidate, Peter Marki-Zay, won with 57.5 percent against the Fidesz candidate Zoltan Hegedus getting 41.6 percent at the election for mayor of the southern town of Hodmezovasarhely. Fidesz has governed the city for the past two decades.

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Opinion

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told

Italian central banker Piero Cipollone in his first monetary policy speech since joining the ECB's board in November, said that the bank should be ready to "swiftly dial back our restrictive monetary policy stance."

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