While the scandal has sullied the reputation of all Fleet Street’s tabloids, it continues to do immense damage to Mr Murdoch’s media stable. Having been forced to close down the News of the World after it was revealed that the paper’s reporters had hacked the voicemail messages of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, Murdoch is now coming under pressure to do the same to The Sun, Britain’s best-selling daily.

In the last couple of weeks, a string of senior Sun journalists have been arrested on suspicion of attempting to bribe police officers, the information allegedly passed on to the police by News Corporation’s own management and standards committee. For the first time since a bitter industrial dispute in 1986 when Murdoch scrapped the Sun’s print unions and moved the paper’s headquarters from Fleet Street to Wapping in East London, disunity and rebellion was in the air.

With characteristic bravado, Murdoch responded by promising that the Sun’s future was secure and that he would soon launch a Sun on Sunday to replace the News of the World. A brave boast, but one that stands no chance of happening if there turns out to be concrete evidence of illegal payments to the police.

Amidst this soap opera lies an important issue, namely, the future of print journalism. Most papers in the UK, and across the rest of Europe, are losing readers and money. The Sun’s profits help subsidise the huge losses of the Times. Russian tycoon Andrei Lebvedev runs his revamped London Evening Standard and the Independent on a skeleton staff. The Guardian Media Group continues to lose money despite a very successful website as does the Trinity Mirror Group, which owns the Daily Mirror. The future of the dead-tree press is not helped by a scandal involving its own.

There have been some crocodile tears at the Sun’s travails from its rivals and victims. Understandably so, since the Sun’s ruthlessness, hypocrisy and mean-spirited editorial stance has always generated a handful of enemies for every new reader. But while I’m not a fan of the Sun, I hope it survives. Rude, lewd, bigoted, funny, and so jingoistic that I often suspect that one of the requirements to be on the editorial team is the ability to still be able to belt out God Save the Queen with a sofa stuffed down your throat, it is an important part of Britain’s media and cultural landscape. Seeing its printing press close would leave a yawning vacuum.

The Greek crisis has become a full blown tragedy, with the latest will they/won’t they machinations over whether the latest plan of swingeing spending cuts will pass muster with the north Europeans just the latest humiliation for Greece. Unemployment  already stands at a truly frightening 25% – the Gods who devised this tragic farce certainly have a penchant for black humour.

Nobody should be under any illusions about the scale of the sacrifices that the Greek people have been committed to. Public spending, which has already been cut by around 25%, is going to be slashed even further. The minimum wage will fall by 20%. Pensions will be further cut, taxes will go up. Former ECB Vice-President Lucas Papedemos, brought back from a professorial post in the US to rescue his country, has committed his people to a desperately tough but hopefully heroic future.

Needless to say, the price will not be borne by those responsible for Greece’s financial ruin – the political class that presided over the bust is still largely in place. Meanwhile, the country’s wealthiest, who dodged tax on an impressive scale, got their money out and moved to London and Paris. The idea that economic pain can be avoided is still being put about by the Nationalist party leader Antonis Samaras, whose party was responsible for at least one of the country’s statistical frauds, and is feeding rumours that, should he win the April elections, he will renege on the terms of the bailout.

But the blame for the current crisis cannot be laid exclusively at Greek doors. The divisions in Angela Merkel’s cabinet indicate that, no matter what penury the Greek people are signed up to, it will never be enough for some. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble is said to be the leading nay-sayer, with the likes of the Netherlands and Finland also said to be hoping Greece will leave the euro.

Samaras and Schauble are the two diametrically opposed sides of the same problem. To be blunt, Samaras needs to decide whether he is serious about Greece remaining in the euro and getting their finances in shape. Schauble needs to say if he just wants the Greeks out, regardless of what they promise. In fact, their political choice is the one which is at the heart of the reform fatigue/support fatigue conundrum. The debtor countries need to take steps to get their houses in order – the richer nations need to take their fellow European’s plans at face value.

Brussels’ numerous debating chambers are always awash with talk of ‘solidarity’ – often invoked by politicians who mean it least. The EU, with its concepts of ‘shared sovereignty’ and ‘co-decision’, is built upon trust and mutual dependence. So is resolving the debt crisis which, after two years, still engulfs the eurozone. It’s time politicians stopped talking, challenged their domestic electorates, and made their respective leaps of faith.

This question has been subject of a long running debate in Britain. Back in 1977 Labour back-bench MP Tam Dalyell raised the unfairness of Scottish MPs being able to vote on matters that only affected English and Welsh people during the debates on the then unsuccessful attempt to create a Scottish Parliament. Dalyell’s query, which quickly became known as the ‘West Lothian’ question, re-emerged when the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were established by Tony Blair’s government. The West Lothian question became particularly prominent in the 2005-2010 government of Blair and then Gordon Brown, when Labour was reliant on its dominance in Scotland and Wales for its majority in Westminster. As an issue, it still provokes anger, particularly on the Conservative benches.

In reality, an EU version of ‘West Lothian’ has been a dirty, unspoken secret ever since the Maastricht treaty. When it became clear that the UK, Denmark and Sweden would not join the single currency – although the ‘euro group’ was set up to govern the euro area countries – this did not stop MEPs and ministers from those countries being able to vote on issues that would not affect them.  In recent years, other issues such as the rules governing the Schengen agreement (which the UK and Ireland did not sign up to) and justice and home affairs policies (where the UK has string of potential opt-outs) have also come into the equation.

However, the main issue, particularly in the context of the current debt crisis that threatens a number of EU countries and, potentially, financial institutions, is the Eurozone. Both Parliament and the Council spent most of 2012 working on the economic governance ‘six pack’, establishing a series of stiff fines for countries that fall foul of the excessive deficit procedure. Love it or loath it, the economic governance package is arguably the most significant overhaul of the Eurozone since it was established.

Of course, only 17 of the 27 Member States have joined the single currency, but all bar the UK and Sweden are bound by their treaty obligations to join at some stage. Most of the countries which joined the Union in 2004 are making progress towards meeting the convergence criteria with a view to joining the single currency.

Indeed, given that the UK will not join the euro within the next decade, unless there is a dramatic change of public opinion, it is questionable whether they should even be allowed to vote. While both Labour and the Liberal Democrats are, at European level at least, far more integrationist (and, indeed, have committed their parties to supporting euro membership) the Conservative party remains strongly opposed.

The Parliament’s Rules of Procedure, which offers surprisingly therapeutic bed-time reading for euro-obsessives with a masochistic streak, actually has a clause to catch this problem – Rule 2 states that “Members of the European Parliament shall exercise their mandate independently. They shall not be bound by any instructions and shall not receive a binding mandate.”

But although this and other sections of the rule book imply that MEPs represent European citizens rather than just their own country, is this good enough? As an over-represented Brit, I don’t think it is. It is profoundly undemocratic for MEPs to have the right to vote on and influence legislation that they will never apply in their Member States, particularly as we know how MEPs bat for their national interests. For example, some MEPs tabled amendments to increase sanctions against debt laden Member States, when the country they represent would not be liable for the same sanctions if they were in the same situation. Fair? Surely not.

It will be interesting to see the developments of the fiscal union treaty for the EU-26. Some MEPs already want to have sub-committees on policy areas where some Member States have opt-outs. What happens if they push to harmonise corporation tax and introduce a financial transactions tax? Will British MEPs be allowed to vote even if their ministers are locked out of the negotiations? Now that the fiscal union treaty defines a clear line between the EU-26 and Britain, it’s time that the EU’s barrack-room lawyers gather together to resolve our unspoken ‘West Lothian’.

The European Parliament is not a sexy institution. With a couple of honourable exceptions, the Parliament is largely devoid of glamour politicians, preferring instead to concentrate on using its law-making powers and trying to increase its control over the Commission. This is fair enough – despite what some of its protagonists might think, politics is about law-making not showbiz – and, having worked in several other Parliaments, I reckon that the EP is often unfairly criticised, particularly in the British press. Although it can have the perception of being remote, the Parliament has made itself very accessible. Anyone can watch a plenary session or committee either online or in person, while Parliamentary reports, amendments, questions and speeches are also easily available.

But when it comes to the elections for its key positions the Parliament does not help itself. Politicians that laud themselves as being the elected representatives of the peoples of Europe divvy up the top jobs like a bunch of used car dealers or, much, much worse, student politicians. There are no open elections for the Parliament’s presidency – instead the EPP and the Socialist group take it in turns to put up the winning candidate.

Meanwhile, the rest of the positions are divided up in a grand deal at the start of the legislative term by the main political groups. After the EPP and the Socialist group have decided who’s going to be President, the committee posts are then divided up amongst the largest national delegations. It’s good news if you are German, French or British, but MEPs from the smaller member states are completely shut out of the picture.

The other problem with the system is that it creates far too many titles. By my count – albeit off the top of my head – there are over 100 Vice-Presidents in the EP, including fourteen Vice-Presidents of the Parliament. And that’s not to mention the five Quaestor’s, with their titles straight out of the Harry Potter novels.

Of course, most political deals are still done in smoke-filled rooms by ‘the men in grey suits’, and I don’t expect that many people are going to lose sleep over who the next Chairs of the Budgetary Control or Petitions committees are going to be. But the election of the Parliament’s President and the big committees – such as Foreign Affairs, Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Internal Market – should be open and transparent.

That is why the Parliament’s ‘elections’ need to be proper contests. No more stitch-ups, no more election by acclamation. The truth is that even without the deal with the EPP, Socialist Martin Schultz would have easily beaten British Liberal Diana Wallis and Conservative Nirj Deva as Parliament’s President. But MEPs and citizens deserve an open contest. So hopefully messrs Daul, Swoboda and Verhofstadt can get together in a smoke-filled room and make a deal to end the deals.

But there are two things which are vexing. Firstly, my Sky subscription is useless when I am outside the UK. Secondly, because Sky has also bought rights to NFL games, I find that a few games (usually the ones most worth watching) are ‘blacked out’ when I try to watch in the UK.

Not only is this unfair – after all, I have paid for both subscriptions – but it also highlights one of the reasons why selling broadcast rights on a country- by- country basis often screws over the consumer. You pay through the nose to watch the best and most popular shows only to find that, once you’re outside one Member State, you either have to pay again or do without a service you paid for.

It looks as though the ‘Premier League’ ruling by the ECJ marked a line in the sand. The Commission communication on e-commerce indicated that the era of country-by-country deals may be drawing to a close. Collective rights-sales and pan-European licensing are on he cards. It can’t come a moment too soon for me. After all, if a digital single market is to exist in the EU then it is logical that we have pan-European or multi-territory broadcasting rights. This should apply for all commercial television. The irony is that the likes of the BBC, ZDF and RTE tend to be available to cable-tv viewers across the EU, despite the fact that it is more difficult to justify state-backed channels being available.

So there is every reason to expect that watching our favourite programmes should become easier within the next couple of years. But although some saw the ‘Premier League’ ruling – which decided that it is perfectly legal for individuals to buy decoder cards and TV subscriptions from other countries to undercut the subscription fees for Sky Sports – I don’t expect the value of rights, which is then reflected in the size of the subscription fees, to dramatically decline.

The big money-spinning broadcasting rights deals are for football, of which the English Premier League is the biggest single collective rights sale, with BskyB currently paying £5bn for a three year deal. The deals for the rights to show Barcelona and Real Madrid matches, which are sold by the clubs themselves, are similarly large. Instead, I would expect the Premier League, and all other rights-holders to copyright more elements which they could then require their TV partners to air. For example, UEFA uses a copy-righted anthem in the broadcasts of its Champion’s League matches, and the scope for introducing new copy-rights is extremely wide.

So those of us who baulk at the prospect of paying 40 or 50 euros per month in subscriptions shouldn’t hold their breath in assuming that collective rights will cut costs. Nonetheless, if EU legislation cannot make TV cheaper to watch, it should certainly make it easier. And that in itself would be a big step forward.

Forgive me for having heard it all before. The eurozone has apparently been in the ‘last chance saloon’ for so long that I’m surprised there have been no sightings of one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Of course, Europe is in the midst of a difficult economic depression. Many of our banks are still teetering on the brink of bankruptcy despite hundreds of billions of euros in taxpayer bail-outs in 2007-8 (although scandalously they still think it’s acceptable to award themselves massive bonuses); unemployment, particularly amongst young people, is dangerously high; a number of country’s have high debt and budget deficits; and a few years of economic stagnation beckon.

But while it would be daft to underestimate the perils facing Europe are things really that bad?

The simple answer is: no. Average incomes in Europe have more than doubled over the last 40 years and increasing life expectancy means that we will live longer to enjoy it. Yes, it’s true that we won’t be able to retire in our 50s or early 60s like many of our parents did, and the job market is far less secure than 30 years ago, but compared with most (arguably all) European generations, we have a pretty good lot.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and enlargement of the EU to Eastern Europe, not to mention long overdue peace in the Balkans, with Croatia set to become the next nation to join the EU, demonstrates that Europe is more peaceful and prosperous than ever before. If, as seems likely, we are set for a few years – perhaps even a decade – of slow growth and budget cutbacks, then we will need to learn how to achieve greater prosperity without growth. This shouldn’t be too difficult. The economic pie may not get much larger, but we can easily divide its rewards more fairly.

As for the next year, I would expect the EU summit count to keep rising as leaders edge towards a new governance structure that stabilises the euro’s future and resolves the crisis of banks exposed to risky sovereign debt. Meanwhile, the elections for the French Presidency and German Bundestag will be fascinating. Will the post-crisis trend of incumbent governments being beaten continue with the defeat of Sarkozy and Merkel or will the European left continue to struggle?

2012 will be challenging, difficult and painful for many. But most Europeans will enjoy a happy and prosperous 2012. So my message to Europe’s leaders is to go easy on the doom-laden rhetoric. This year should be enjoyed not endured.