CEE: Work in progress

WHEN THE SLOVAK centre-right opposition won a surprise victory in elections last June, one of its first actions was to pull the plug on a pair of multibillion-euro motorway projects planned by the previous regime. Domestically, it was a popular move – local politicians and media had condemned the public-private-partnership financing of the schemes as expensive and unnecessary – but it badly dented the confidence of the international infrastructure community in central and eastern Europe.

In some respects, the cancellations should not come as a surprise. PPP is controversial, jumbo infrastructure deals are notoriously subject to political whim, and most countries in CEE are still developing. It isn’t the first time a big transport project in the region has failed to make it past the planning stages. In the past five years Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic have all abandoned high-profile motorway projects at the procurement phase, in some...