Member states of the European Union

The European Commission partially suspends monitoring of Bulgaria from next year. The Commission presents the regular reports on Romania and Bulgaria under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism. This is the latest progress report for Bulgaria and Romania, prepared by the team of Jean-Claude Juncker.

Romania's gross minimum wage exceeds the Central and Eastern European average, but at the same time the country has the highest effective tax rate in the region, specifically 41.5 percent, shows a survey by Deloitte Romania.

The effective tax rate is the highest, at 41.5 percent, for a gross wage of 1,000 euro, whilst the region's average is 27 pct.

The European Commission expects to see a political solution to the issue of the power interconnection of Crete with Attica next week.

Bulgaria is not a wanted partner within the EU, it cooperates practically only with Romania and does not participate in any informal group of countries with common interests.

The Greek sovereign debt crisis will not repeat itself in Italy, Austrian Finance Minister Hartwig Loeger said in remarks published on Sunday.

"The Italian economy has more substance than the Greek," Loeger told the Handelsblatt newspaper.

The leaders of Greece, Egypt and Cyprus are meeting on the island of Crete to discuss furthering regional cooperation, including oil and gas exploration rights in the east Mediterranean and efforts to combat illegal immigration to Europe.

Romania and Bulgaria, which are not just neighbours but also friends, share a past that "has contributed to an enhanced degree of empathy" between the two countries, a present characterised by "an in-depth deepened partnership" and "a common European future", Romania's Ambassador to Romania Ion Galea told an interview granted to AGERPRES.

Technical talks between Greece and Egypt on delineating the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) must be wrapped by the end of the year, the leaders of the two countries agreed, government sources in Athens say.

According to recent successful FDIs in Slovenia, also GDP growth at its highest since 2008 and still growing, Slovenia is an excellent starting point for doing business in the Region. Luxembourg is at € 1.5 billion already second biggest investor to Slovenia, after Austria at € 3 billion.

Last week, another symbol of Greece's post-junta era was buried in the cemetery of history. The symbol is anti-Americanism, which was one of the building blocks of our national mythology after the fall of the military dictatorship and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.