Mindful of its large public debt, Italy refrained from using fiscal policy as an active tool to stimulate the economy, and has managed to keep its budget deficit below the euro-area average (see left-hand chart).
As in Ireland, prices in Spain fell faster in the year to October than in the rest of the euro area, a sign of improving competitiveness (see right-hand chart).
The above chart looks at how many papers were published in the information technology area (on the X-axis) and how likely those papers were to be cited by other scientific papers.
Central and eastern Europe are most exposed to euro-zone bank deleveraging, and the huge importance of the euro area in the region's trade will deal it a further blow (see right-hand chart).