Neither here nor there

Slovenia's second city is trying to turn geography into an economic model.

Lightly indebted energy companies and willing banks are meeting a scarcer commodity. Projects far enough along to be financed.

Slovenia recycles 59.8 per cent of its municipal waste, yet only 10.1 per cent of the material entering its economy comes from recovered sources. The gap is not a Slovene anomaly but a European one, and it has stopped being an environmental question.

For decades, millions kept their homelands afloat by sending money back. Now they're returning with something more powerful: investment, influence, and the means to build lasting economic transformation.

While Central Europe wrestled with German industrial slowdown, Western Balkan companies quietly pushed ahead with diversified exports, domestic consumption and regional stamina.

With 440 kilometres of Adriatic coastline, Albania is finally claiming its place on the Mediterranean shipping map.

Dr Mojmir Mrak on geopolitical shifts, EU competitiveness, and what Slovenia and the Western Balkans must do to survive a turbulent new era.

The EU wants a sevenfold increase in biomethane by 2030 to replace Russian gas. It has the technology and the feedstock. What it lacks is the regulatory architecture to connect them.