Everybody agrees that economic and political power is moving east. Barack Obama has constructed a whole new foreign policy around this theory – the “pivot to Asia”. But, as I assemble my annual list of the five most important events of the year, it is striking how events in Europe and the Middle East still dominate.

During 2012, “old Europe” seemed to hold the fate of the world economy in its unsteady hands. The fear that the euro-crisis could go critical was a constant theme. By the summer, some leading politicians and financiers were in a state of near panic. The man who took the steam out of the crisis was Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank. If the euro crisis spirals out of control again, then Mr Draghi’s promise to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro, coupled with a later pledge of potentially “unlimited” bond purchases, may yet turn out to be footnotes in history. But, for the moment, the Draghi intervention definitely qualifies as one of the five most important events of the year.

Events two and three – the war in Syria and the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – demonstrate why the Middle East continues to soak up the time, energy and anxiety of world leaders. The Syrian civil war has claimed some 40,000 lives. The US, however, remains apparently steadfast in its determination not to be sucked into another conflict in the region.