After a frenetic 2011, what are the big trends that are going to shape Europe and the wider world in 2012? Here are ten that ECFR experts think are likely - and one widely predicted trend that we don't think will happen...

As the EU and Russia hold their latest summit neither side can boast that they are in the best of health. But the summit is important for symbolic reasons - and there are several practical issues that they can address at the same time.

Russia in 2010 was as corrupt as Papua New Guinea, had the property rights of Kenya and was as competitive as Sri Lanka. As Putin readies himself to retake the presidency he must also work out how to deal with a country that is now firmly post-BRIC.

Russia's election results are bad news for Putin for two reasons. Firstly United Russia did badly despite the election being biased in its favour, and secondly it shows that Putin can no longer rely on an apathetic population.

The economic crisis has huge implications for EU foreign policy. There is less time for it, less money available, and Europe's ability to project soft power is in a coma.

Russia's foreign policy over the coming decade will bear the signature of Vladimir Putin, as Russia seeks new alliances and international clout. The price that Russia is likely to pay is international isolation

The European Union has a vital role to play in helping consolidate the transitions of the Arab Spring. But first they need to rethink their approach and develop a new foreign policy for the Southern neighbourhood: Enlargement lite will not work.

The EU's credibility is at stake over the sentencing of Yuliya Tymoshenko to seven years imprisonment. Unless there are signals from Kiev that the sentence will be reviewed or repealled, the EU must act.

It looks like Vladimir Putin is heading back towards the Russian presidency that he first took over in December 1999. Putin's politics have changed little since then, but Russia is now a very different place and the Russians themselves want very different things.

The upheavels in North Africa are further evidence that the EU's neighbourhood has fundamentally changed, both to the south and to the east. In response, the EU needs to develop a real foreign policy to deal with this increasingly competitive region.

This weekend's announcement that Vladimir Putin will stand for the Russian presidency next year is a clear defeat both for Russia's liberals and for the EU's policy of tacitly supporting Medvedev. What will Putin's third term mean for relations between Moscow and Brussels?

After a deep recession, an impressive recovery and years of fractious relations with its Russian-speaking minority, Latvia might be on the brink of breaking free from the problems that have dogged its politics since independence. The country's elections last week might have gone largely unnoticed in the outside world, but they could trigger a mini-revolution. 

Albania is politically paralysed by a stand-off between prime minister and opposition. The EU must act decisively to prevent the country becoming a small enclave dominated by illiberal politics and bureaucratic dysfunctionality.

On 24th August 1991, Ukraine declared itself independent. Andrew Wilson, who was in Kiev learning Ukrainian at the time, assesses where the country stands two decades on.

With Russia's next presidential election scheduled for next March, the important question for Europe is not "More Medvedev or Putin 2.0?" It is whether its giant Eastern neighbour can modernise, and avert the threat of  “Brezhnevisation” – political stagnation without economic reform.