Institutions

The Russian prime minister and the widely expected winner of the upcoming presidential elections, Vladimir Putin, unveiled a plan to boost the Russian military on 20 February  in order not to “tempt anyone with our [Russian] weakness”.

In order to increase economic growth and investment in Armenia, the EU is launching negotiations on a deep and comprehensive free-trade area. The negotiations will focus on regulatory approximation along with market access conditions, both of which will help to achieve a closer economic integration of Armenia with the EU.

On 15 February, Cisco appealed the European Commission's approval of Microsoft's $8.5 billion takeover of Skype, citing the possibility that Microsoft may take Skype in a proprietary direction and impede interoperability with other vendor's video offerings.

Croatia took a step closer to EU accession, after Bulgaria’s National Assembly ratified on 17 February Croatia’s EU accession treaty.

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov said during his speech in favour of ratification that "this act is an expression of Bulgaria’s consistent policy in support of the...

Iran's English-language Press TV announced on 15 February that the country was ready to suspend oil deliveries to France, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Netherlands and Spain, but Iran's oil ministry denied the report.