Keeping Greece in and allowing massive European Central Bank intervention are the best ingredients for saving the eurozone. But the case for common eurozone bonds is less clear.

From sovereign debt woes to political brinkmanship and the swathe of new regulations hitting banks, the events of 2011 have reverberated across markets and around the world. There have been a few bright spots, not least the growing confidence of local currency debt markets, but overall it has been a gloomy year. Most believe the fate of 2012 lies in the hands of European policy-makers.

Many of Azerbaijan's banks were hit by economic slowdown and falling real estate valuations in 2010, and there are signs that a significant shake-up of the sector is beginning.

Political uncertainty and regulation has blighted the progress on the Economic Co-Operation Framework Agreement between Taiwan and China. Now, slowly but surely, agreements are finally being reached that should benefit Taiwan's banks and businesses.

Emergency measures taken by the major central banks are widely credited for having a stabilising influence on the financial system and the economy. But there are growing concerns about the long-term impact of these measures.

The International Monetary Fund is being called into question amid fears that it is short of the necessary resources to temper the eurozone crisis and accusations that the historically Eurocentric organisation is not reforming its voting system fast enough to embrace emerging economies.

The EU has lost its way. Only by reverting to its original intention – of pooled sovereignty with all members pulling in the same direction for the greater good – can it get begin to recover from the crisis that currently engulfs it.

Hit hard during the financial crisis, the Romanian government was the first in the EU to successfully complete an International Monetary Fund loan programme, without even needing to draw the whole loan. Secretary of state for finance Bogdan Dragoi explains his government’s strategy.

Governments in central and eastern Europe can take heart from the fact that every economy in the region is forecast to grow in 2011. But the expanded role for development finance ushered in by the financial crisis is not being rolled back just yet.