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The Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó couldn’t be clearer: the Hungarian government has declared a battle against organizations funded by George Soros. They are calling for transparency within foreign-backed NGOs operating in the country, something, however, that Brussels condemned.

The Turkish Central Bank has reduced its number of Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meetings from 12 to eight times a year, the bank said Jan. 28.      

The move is intended to give the bank more time to formulate effective monetary policy responses.    
  
Last November, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Şimşek announced that the bank would reduce the number of meetings.      

Greece's compliance with the terms of a memorandum it signed with US on security and terrorism will be evaluated in February, the Citizens' Protection Ministry has said.

According to a new agreement, which essentially validated and updated an earlier one from 2009,  Greek identity cards will soon be replaced by more secure biometric ones.

Kathimerini understands that the Finance Ministry's planned lotteries - intended as an incentive to encourage consumers to use credit and debit cards for their everyday transactions - will include a new car for one lucky shopper each month.

There will be thousands of other prizes up to 50 euros each, most of which will comprise free credit.

Ratings agency Fitch downgraded Turkey's sovereign debt to "junk" late on Jan. 27, snuffing out its last remaining investment grade by underlining deepening concerns over the country's political and security developments.

"Political and security developments have undermined economic performance and institutional independence," Fitch said in a statement.

The delay in the completion of Greece's second bailout review will inflict a blow on economic growth this year, which will underperform the government's expectations, the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) argues in its quarterly report released on Thursday.

The delays in the tabling of a bill concerning out-of-court debt settlements and the immunity of bank officials are generating concerns regarding the achievement of the target set by the European Central Bank's Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) for a 40.2-billion-euro reduction in the sum of bad loans by the end of 2019.

Taxpayers who use their credit and debit cards for transactions will have to wait until March for the Finance Ministry to issue its decision on the various state lotteries and prize draws. Deputy Minister Katerina Papanatsiou noted however that although the decision will not be released until the end of March, the draws will include card transactions conducted since January 1.

The reason for the delay observed in the licensing of companies to manage nonperforming loans - whose applications have risen to 10, up from seven submitted by December - is the particularly demanding institutional framework. Out of the candidate companies, just one has received a license, with the other nine still pending.

The increased taxes on corporations and households, as well as higher consumption taxes, brought the Greek economy to its knees last year, according to the definitive data for the 2016 budget that the Finance Ministry released on Tuesday.