Romania

Romania's tax authority said on Thursday it is intensifying the fight against tax evasion by targeting music stars, moneylenders and company owners to investigate the origins of their revenues.

Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia on Thursday discussed technical aspects of a joint project to connect their telecommunications networks in the border regions.

Bulgarian hypermarket chain for baby and children's goods Hippoland begins its overseas expansion, with a store set to open in Romania's Bucharest on August 1.

The Bucharest-based store, located in the Auchan commercial center in the Drumul Taberei district, spans an area of over 1400 square meters.

Swiss-Irish food giant ARYZTA AG has acquired bakery chain Fornetti, which has sites in Bulgaria.
The value of the deal was not disclosed.

ARYZTA AG, a global leader in the frozen bakery segment, currently has operations and factories on four continents.
The shares of the company are traded at the stock exchanges in Zurich and Ireland.

Romania and Bulgaria are looking for new builders of the 26 kilometer Giurgiu-Ruse gas pipeline.

A poster campaign by anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats has divided the opinions in downtown Stockholm.

Posters hanging from the ceiling of the entrance of a subway station in Sweden's capital read: "Sorry about the mess here in Sweden. We have a serious problem with forced begging!"

The European Commission has currently no intention of paying pay compensations to Bulgarian dairy producers due to the decrease in the price of the raw material and the losses caused by the Russian embargo, according to Agriculture Minister Desislava Taneva.

Romanian prosecutors at the Ploiesti Court of Appeals have indicted six senior officials of Petrotel, a refinery of Russia's Lukoil in Romania, for money-laundering.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has suggested his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin could go as far as he is allowed to, if he embarks on an offensive into Europe, including the Black Sea countries.

Greece-based Piraeus Bank is negotiating with the National Bank of Greece (NBG) group over a potential merger into United Bulgarian Bank, owned by NBG, media reports suggest.

None of the two Greek lenders has yet commented on the reports of the Greek-language news website Euro2Day, which is quoted by the Bulgarian mass circulation daily 24 Chasa ("24 Hours").