David O'Byrne and Nicholas Watson
Thu, 26th Jan -- The Russians, Turks and economic reality are killing the EU's gas pipe dream.

Thomas Escritt in Budapest
Wed, 25th Jan -- A head-strong government in Hungary that is nervously eyeing its dwindling popularity in the polls may well decide in the end that the gamble of going it alone is a better bet than the austerity that could carry on for another four years.

John Casey of HSBC
Thu, 26th Jan -- While the economic picture remains gloomy in Europe, international trade is a key driver of Europe's success story in the future.

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Mon, 23rd Jan -- Gazprom's South Stream gas pipeline, designed to ship Russian gas directly to Southern Europe circumventing Ukraine, looks to have stolen a march on the rival EU/US-backed supported Nabucco pipeline.

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Mon, 23rd Jan -- Croatia as expected voted on January 22 in favour of joining the EU, though the poor turnout for the referendum was a clear indication of how the problems in the crisis-ridden bloc and the interminable accession process have combined to lessen the appeal of the bloc to many Croatians.

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Thu, 19th Jan -- The IMF announced January 18 that it plans to hunt down an extra $500bn of firepower. That will likely send it cap in hand to the BRICS, especially with EU members € increasingly led by Central European states - now showing greater unwillingness to fund the extra €200bn agreed as part of the Eurozone fiscal pact in December.

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Mon, 16th Jan -- EU officials reacted with anger over the weekend to the downgrade of nine Eurozone countries announced by S&P on Friday, January 13. While the ratings agency stuck to its guns in reiterating the market's lust for the EU to build a big bazooka to shoot down the debt crisis with cash, analysts suggest the move could raise the political obstacles to concerted action.

Mike Collier in Riga
Mon, 16th Jan -- Ever since Latvia brought to an end in December its €7.5bn bailout loan from the IMF that helped avert bankruptcy, PM Dombrovskis has been trying to get across how optimistic he is about the country's prospects. But all the media want to talk about is a referendum that could make Russian the second official language alongside Latvian.

Plamen Monovski, CIO of Renaissance Asset Managers
Tue, 20th Dec -- We hope you enjoy this special edition of Renaissance Asset Manager's "Friday RAM" report, which peers, tongue-in-cheek, into some unexpected occurrences in 2012. It mixes the wacky with the serious, the probable with the impossible, leaving it to you, the Reader, to spot which one is which.

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Mon, 19th Dec -- What happens to Western Europe in the spring of 2012 is obviously key to the path that Russia will follow, but outside the scope of this report. All the banks have their own views, so we limit ourselves to reproducing an outline of four possible scenarios from PwC that covers the basics.

Mike Collier in Tallinn
Mon, 19th Dec -- Exposed to the Eurozone like their fellow small, open and export-led economies in Central Europe, the bounce that the Baltics managed to put back in their step in the first half of 2011 is already fading.

Tim Gosling in Prague
Tue, 20th Dec -- Ignorance is bliss, so they say. That should make Central Europe the happiest place on the planet in 2012, because as governments, analysts and the wider population try to gauge the depth and impact of the building crisis in the Eurozone, it's clear no-one knows anything. Apart from the Hungarians of course, who know that everyone's out to get them.