The words "populist" and "populism" sound negatively in Estonian due to the context they were used when independence was regained. It was the idealism vs populism era. On one side, there were politicians who were making the right decisions with long perspective regardless how much it cost them in popularity polls; businessmen who pursued towards creation of the "Estonian Nokia";  visionaries painting the somewhat romanticistic picture of the pre-war Estonia, where everyone had allegedly been happy, and what was about to return soon enough if everyone worked hard enough. Populists, in turn, were those who made short-sighted decisions just to make the less educated masses like them; who did not care about the future, but only about the present day; who had allegedly no ideals; who changed their views next day if doing so ensured the rise of popularity. Or, to be more precise, these were the images that the media created and amplified. Journalists, in general, lined with the first lot of people - idealists in their hearts as they mostly are.

So it is official: the airBaltic saga has reached, if not the end, then a major milestone. The Latvian government is no longer just the nominal majority shareholder: it actually now controls the airline. A bailout plan has been prepared and approved and hopefully will be soon put into action. And, most importantly, the airline's flamboyant CEO Bertolt Flick has stepped down.

Igor Rõtov, CEO of Äripäev

We thought it was about time to update the old website which served its purpose of directing our readers to the business reports, but – let’s be honest – was looking like it came from a different era.

The result of the Sunday vote seems to suggest that for the first time in decades the Poles have more to lose than gain. The average Polish voter has reached a certain point of comfort, where stability seems like a much better option than allowing any revolutionaries to gamble with the country's future. It is truly remarkable, that a party that promised the least in terms of social spending, benefits and the like, has received close to 40% of votes in a country that used to fall for all kinds of empty promises in the past. This, in our view, reflects the normalization of Polish politics and the consolidation of a broader and more stable centre in the country's political system. The appearance of a socially liberal grouping on the left end of the political spectrum, the Palikot Movement, and its strong result in the vote, also paradoxically confirms a growing maturity of Poland's political life.

Merli Lindberg, General Manager of Danish-Estonian Chamber of Commerce

I have spent the better part of my summer holiday at my holiday home in Saaremaa and like every post euro reform visitor to Estonia I had to get used to the myriad of copper and brass coins that have replaced the myriad of ridiculously-low denomination kroon bank notes. At least the maintenance cost of the new currency will be lower - or so it should be - because small bills have a lifetime of down to six months while coins last for decades.

Come to the country of IBM, Western Union, Barclays and Thermo Fischer Scientific. And it is not the USA but Lithuania. It seems that Lithuania's prime minister and minister of economics will never get tired of this new mantra that they recite in every meeting with high-profile foreign business communities – and such meetings have been indeed frequent these months, spanning from the USA to Finland.

A lot has happened in a year in both global economy as well as in Estonia, said Robert Kitt, Managing Director of Swedbank's Corporate Banking in Estonia, in his speech at the Swedish Business Awards ceremony on October 18.

In the past decade 2001-2010, the Chinese economy leapfrogged the three leading European countries – France, Britain and German – and Japan to become the world's second largest economy. And it is almost a consensus that it is just a matter of time, in 10 to 20 years, when China will surpass the USA and regain its position as the world's top economy. At this moment, a natural question mark is, how accountable are China's GDP data?

Vilnius, 18 Jan 2011

Uffe Balslev, Danish Ambassador to Estonia