News stories by Analysis by Zoltán Dujisin

Twenty years ago when the Berlin wall fell, radical privatisation was promoted as a solution to the ills of Eastern European economies. The one country that ignored the West’s recipe— Slovenia — seems to be faring far better.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has slapped IMF in the face, shocking an international community used to news of economic difficulties coming from this small Central European nation. But most Hungarians have welcomed it, at least so far.

The 2004 'Orange revolution' saw a pro-Western leadership emerge victorious in a Presidential vote that opposed them to a pro-Russian candidate accused of vote rigging. After six years of political and economic chaos, the once villain Viktor Yanukovich has reclaimed the President's post.

Neither the voters nor the West hold great illusions about genuine change in crisis-ridden Ukraine through the elections this weekend.

Ever since being elected as President in 2008, conservative Lee-Myung-bak has pursued a hard-line policy towards North Korea, with the country’s left also blaming him for recent tensions in the peninsula.

The European Union's Eastern Partnership, promoting closer cooperation between the EU and former Soviet Republics, has been enthusiastically endorsed in Eastern Europe, ignored in the West, and criticised in Russia.

In spite of the Lisbon Treaty's approval by both houses of the Czech Parliament, President Vaclav Klaus is refusing to sign the document that many believe would allow the EU to deal effectively with the global economic crisis.

As the extension of the U.S. missile defence system to Eastern Europe is halted, U.S. President Barack Obama seems inclined to exchange it for Russian cooperation in taming Iran's nuclear ambitions.

A declaration which equates communism to Nazism and condemns communist ideology as 'directly responsible for crimes against humanity' has been debated in the European Parliament on the initiative of the Czech Presidency of the European Union.

Who will save Ukraine? On the verge of state bankruptcy, the country is considering its options both East and West.