Hello,
I'm from Bulgaria in south eastern Europe.There are mostly brown bears in our mountains.In our country it`s extremely hard to get a hunting licence for bear hunting ,not to mention that it`s very expensive.
In the last year or so there were some bear attacks that resulted in human fatalities.Recently there was a law passed that allows bear hunting for population management purposes.No minimum recomended caliber,no regulations on the guns-Semiautos(rifles or shotguns),double guns(rifles or shotguns)or bolt action.
The best place to hunt bear in Europe is in Russia.Cheapest tropy fees and great tropies.The most exciting way for hunting russian brown bear is with siberian laikas(east and west siberian laikas).
The weapons used for this type hunting are mainly rifles(bolt,auto loaders or doubles) or combination guns, recomended minimum caliber is 3006,7.62x54r or bigger.Bears can also be hunted from a raised hide + baiting or at their lair with dogs.
Another good place to hunt bear in Europe is in Romania(just north of Bulgaria).Trophy fees are more expensive than in Russia,but less expensive than in Bulgaria.Bears are hunted from a raised hide,with dogs and by a drive(like wild boar-Beaters,dogs and posts.)As far as I know there are two species of bear in Romania-Black(i think it`s called a carpathian black bear) and Brown.I'm not very familiar with the weapons used for hunting bear in Romania.A friend of mine goes there to hunt bear with a 300 win mag bolt action rifle.
Another friend of mine lives in Finland and hunts bears and moose with east siberian laikas.He uses a Haenel jaeger 8** double rifle in 8x57irs or a sauer und sohn drilling in 16/16/7x65r.

Nasluka!(good hunting or best of hunting luck)
Jordan Bojinov.