Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is about to turn from a regulatory acronym into a direct price signal that reshapes capital investment for South-East European power utilities and coal-fired thermal plants. From 2026, electricity imported into the European Union will carry a carbon cost that mirrors the EU emissions trading price. For non-EU countries in the […]
While hydropower determines how fat the margins are in wet years, coal and lignite still determine whether the lights stay on at scale in much of South-East Europe. Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and North Macedonia all continue to rely on coal-fired thermal power plants (TPPs) for a substantial share of baseload. Behind
Hydropower is still the quiet balance-sheet engine of the South-East European power system. While wind and solar dominate headlines, it is the big river cascades, mountain reservoirs and ageing dams that decide whether utilities report record profits or scramble for imports at thin margins. Across Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, North Macedonia, Croatia, Romania,
If operational stability defines the present of South-East Europe’s electricity utilities, investment and financing define their future. Across the region, utility balance sheets are repositioning around large capital-expenditure programmes covering renewable generation, grid digitalisation, environmental compliance, flexible backup capacity and storage. The dominant source of capital is not speculative private finance but long-tenor, policy-aligned financing
South-East Europe’s power utilities have moved from being passive state monopolies to becoming the most systemically influential corporates in their national economies. They are at once suppliers of baseload stability, hard-currency earners through cross-border electricity trade, primary vehicles for renewable-energy deployment, and quasi-sovereign financial institutions anchoring domestic banking and capital-market ecosystems. When looking across Serbia,
The latest comparisons of retail fuel prices reveal a clear divide across southeastern Europe, with Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia continuing to rank among the most affordable markets, while Serbia and Slovenia sit at the top of the regional scale, especially when it comes to diesel. For unleaded petrol (BMB 95), Slovenia records the
A region divided at the pump: Southeastern Europe’s growing fuel price gap Read More »
The story of South-East Europe’s electricity markets in 2025 is essentially a story of a region learning to navigate a world where stability cannot be assumed and where every structural weakness eventually becomes visible in price behavior. Across the region, 2025 continued the pattern that began after the European energy shock: markets did not collapse,
South-East Europe’s power reality: 2025 lessons and what 2026 will really look like Read More »
If South-East Europe chooses nuclear as a central pillar of its energy future, the decision will not be about engineering alone. Nuclear would fundamentally alter the region’s energy psychology, its economic credibility, and the behavior of its electricity markets. The real intersection between nuclear and the market here is not technical — it is strategic
In South-East Europe, energy strategy has never simply been a technical expression of infrastructure planning. It has always been deeply political, economically sensitive, geopolitically shaped and socially charged. Nuclear power sits right at the center of that tension. It promises long-term stability in a region burdened with volatility. It offers strategic independence in markets traditionally
Nuclear power and South-East Europe: Between strategic necessity and market hesitation Read More »
South-East Europe has spent most of the past three decades reacting to energy problems rather than shaping its own future. It has lived through power shortages, political dependency, pipeline crises, refinery uncertainties, hydrological shocks, volatile import bills, underinvestment, institutional hesitation and a constant feeling that stability was always one crisis away from disappearing. In 2025,
