By Stefan Wagstyl, eastern Europe editor

Small European countries generally make international news only when they get into trouble, as crisis-hit Latvia has found to its cost.

With 22m people Romania is not small by European standards, but it is poor and far removed from the European Union’s heartlands.

It last made global headlines when the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown 20 years ago. Now Romania risks returning to the front pages if its leaders don’t sort out its crisis-linked economic difficulties. The problem is not the economy per se  - Romania has an International Monetary Fund/European Union rescue programme and a range of proposed reforms to go with it.

The problem is politics. The leaders are hopelessly split. On Sunday, president Traian Basescu won a second term in office by the narrowest of margins, beating Mircea Geoana, his challenger, by 50.3 per cent to 49.7 per cent. Now he must form a government capable of winning a parliamentary majority, to replace his last, which collapsed two months ago.

But the head-strong president is no consensus builder. He has in recent years tried almost every possible coalition combination. The former sea-captain must overcome his me-first instincts soon. Or the good ship Romania will founder on the economic rocks. The IMF may be ready to wait patiently for better times. The markets will not.

Related reading:

East Europe stays on road to change, despite bumps FT
Lex on central and eastern Europe FT
Video footage spices up race for Romania’s presidency FT

From the FT’s Westminster blog

Cathy Ashton is Europe’s new foreign policy supremo. Even friends are stunned that someone so low key could have been elevated to such a high profile job. To date she has served as EU trade commissioner, leader of the Lords, and as a junior justice and education minister. Here are 10 more details about her:

– She spent most of her early career working for Business in the Community, a charity set-up by Prince Charles

– She quit as Tony Blair’s farming minister after four days in 2006.  She refused to take on the job as a part-time adjunct to her post at the Department for Constitutional Affairs

– One of her best moments as Leader of the Lords came when Ireland voted against the Lisbon treaty. She had been astute enough to agree a position with Gordon Brown beforehand, so when the Irish result interrupted a Lords debate on Europe, she was able to rise to her feet immediately and give the treaty her full backing

– She was an administrative secretary for CND between 1977 and 1979 (I wonder what her MI5 file says?) and was later elected a vice-chairwoman

– She is married to Peter Kellner, the left-leaning former journalist turned YouGov pollster

– She spends her weekends back at home in the UK and travels to Brussels on Monday mornings

– She is a big X Factor fan but only mentions enjoying the theatre in Who’s Who

– A full-size Dalek stands in the corner of her sitting room. It was a present from Peter

– Lord McNally is one of her most excitable admirers: “She has a very seductive manner,” he once told his peers. “Indeed, in my daydreams I sometimes think…of Antony and Cleopatra, with me as Antony—but she already has an Antony.”

– She shuns some accoutrements of the high life (”I don’t know any oligarchs. I don’t think I’ve ever been on anyone’s yacht.’) but she is not known to compromise on restaurants in Brussels