AmCham members and Czech government officials convened at the US Residence to welcome US Ambassador Stephen B. King to the country and into the business community. 2018 marks one hundred years since the founding of Czechoslovakia, and the country now may be living at the highest point of prosperity and security in that century of struggle and triumph. 

The roots of Euroscepticism among the Czechs go back 10 or 15 years and if Jiří Drahoš defeats the incumbent President Miloš Zeman in a runoff vote on 26-27 January, he will struggle to reverse the trend, political analyst Lubomír Kopeček told EURACTIV.

According to Eurostat, in 2016, the share of energy from renewable sources in gross final consumption of energy reached 17% in the European Union (EU), double the share in 2004 (8.5%), the first year for which the data are available. Among the 28 EU Member States, 11 have already reached the level required to meet their national 2020 targets: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Croatia, Italy, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Finland and Sweden.

China became the largest foreign investor across emerging Europe* in 2017, according to the “Emerging Europe M&A report 2017/2018” published by CMS in cooperation with EMIS. China increased the value of its investments into the region by 78% to €7.7bn, after a 96% rise in 2016. The US remained the busiest investor by number of deals with 92 transactions in 2017. These results may be a sign of things to come for the region as domestic investment continued to dominate activity: Russian investors clocked up 603 deals worth a value of €22.5bn; Polish investors negotiated 166 deals worth €4.3bn.