Nobody wants to speak too soon, but the horrors of the past 12 months seem far away. Nothing has changed, of course. All the old nasties are still there, including looming Eurogeddon, but we're told that every possible hazard has been "priced in".

As the debt-ridden, fractious European family gathered in Brussels for what was billed as crunch time, analysts coined a term for the chaos predicted to ensue if the euro fails: ''Eurogeddon.''

Eurogeddon? With the threat of civil war now facing Serbia itself, are we fiddling while east-central Europe burns?