Who are Europe's winners and losers?

It's been pretty scary for the rest of us. So just imagine what it is like as a president or prime minister, waking up to hear the headlines on the latest stock market nosedive or threatened national bankruptcy -- and knowing that you have actually got to DO something about the situation.

With a lame-duck president in the White House, the onus has particularly been on Europe's leaders during the past few weeks. And Europe of late has shown rather more ability to pull together, both over Russia's engulfment of Georgia and over the world economic crisis.

But while the rest of us need to stock up on savings for retirement -- those that are left to us by Grab The Bonus & Run Life Assurance Limited -- politicians need to stack up credits with voters whom, sooner or later, they and their parties will face again at an election. They all need to show they have coped, and that they have done so rather better than the next fellow.

So who, at this stage, are Europe's winners and losers? Tell CNN what you think

No doubt that Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister, has so far "had a good war" in the crisis. He was the first leader to announce and execute a three-pronged plan to increase liquidity, strengthening banking's capital base by taking preference shares in the big operators and guaranteeing inter-bank lending. Before long the U.S. and the major Eurozone countries followed suit.

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the European Socialists, toasted him as a "hero." Even the French media hailed the dour Scot as a "magician."

Suddenly, at last week's Brussels summit, Brown was the man whom other leaders wanted to be seen with. It was a telling contrast to last December, when he made an idiot of himself by deliberately not arriving in time to sign the Lisbon Treaty alongside other leaders, hoping to please Britain's Euro-sceptics with a staged show of reluctance but in the process alienating most of his EU colleagues.

Considerable praise goes also to Brown's finance minister Alastair Darling for much of the thinking and the legwork, but it is Brown who would have taken the brickbats for failure. He is entitled to credit (if that is not the wrong word to use these days) for what has been perceived as a success.

Brown may still lack charisma, but politics is currently operating on a battleground where he feels comfortable and, more importantly, looks it. It has lifted his poll ratings at home and forced David Cameron, his Conservative opponent in Britain, to trail slightly forlornly around the TV studios, reminding people he is still there and that there is plenty else the government has got wrong.

It goes further for Brown. During much of his 10 years as finance minister, before he became prime minister, he was wagging his finger at international meetings, insisting that we needed global regulation of a global economy and that thorough reform of the world's financial institutions was essential. That has now become a theme song for leaders everywhere.

But spare a thought for Europe's current titular leader Nicolas Sarkozy. The French president started his six-month stint in the EU chair in July positively brimming with ideas to put both France and the EU back on the map, ensuring that they punched their weight in world diplomacy in a way they failed to do under Jacques Chirac, his predecessor at the Elysee Palace. There were schemes for a firm new immigration policy, a major leap forward on climate change measures, a new union with countries at the other end of the Mediterranean and a clarified new defense role for the EU.

But one major crisis or another has deflected attention -- and Sarkozy's formidable energy -- from his chosen program.

First the Irish voted down the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum, forcing him back on the wearisome trail of having to stitch up a new deal on the constitution. Then there was the crisis in Georgia. Then the convulsions in the world economy.

Beaten to the first punches by Brown, Sarkozy has since made up ground, convening top-level meetings of Europe's Big Four (France, Germany, Italy and the UK) winning agreement among the 15 Eurozone countries for common adoption of something like the Brown plan and then conducting an effective Brussels summit at which the rest of the 27 lined up with them.

Any French president who can use his skills to put together a European coalition behind a plan originating in Britain truly deserves the label of "diplomat." In particular, Sarkozy used his charm and strength there to persuade Poland and Italy not to use the economic situation as an excuse to sabotage the EU's ambitious climate change plans, including a 20 percent reduction in CO2 emissions (against 1990 standards) by 2020. "The targets and the calendar remain unchanged," said a triumphant Sarkozy at the end of the summit.

Even if the practise fails to live up to the intention, that was a significant achievement. Nul points meanwhile for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the disunited Polish pair of President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Sarkozy, who hit the headlines when brokering peace in Georgia during the summer, had already won considerable praise for his efforts there. He thrives on action, and the adrenalin junkie was back in the forefront at the weekend, heading off to Camp David with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso to try to enlist U.S. support for a meeting of world leaders that would recast the key financial institutions. It was as if he was underlining that while there is a vacuum in American leadership, Europe United can produce results. Watch Sarkozy meet with Bush at Camp David »

Expect Sarkozy before long to use it as an argument for reviving that new European constitution turned down by the Irish voters. It will be intriguing to see whether Sarkozy, who has also called for a new Brettton Woods-style overhaul of world banking, and Brown can combine effectively in driving through a "fit for purpose" IMF or whether they will jostle for position. They are, after all, politicians.

But what of mighty Germany's Angela Merkel? Not so long ago she was the great conciliator in Europe, the politician whom U.S. presidents and secretaries of state passing through the continent wanted to come and consult.

Stuck in a patently disintegrating "Grand Coalition" with the Social Democrats, Merkel has dithered and blundered on economic questions and on her supposed commitment to the European ideal, insisting from the start that Germany would not be part of any Europe-wide rescue fund. Instead she urged in sometimes less than diplomatic language that it was for each individual country to clear up the mess left on its own doorstep.

At first Germany criticized Ireland for announcing unilaterally that it would guarantee all savings in its banks. The next thing we knew was that the chancellor was indicating, though rather less clearly than Irish finance minister Brian Lenihan, that the German government would do just the same. So few points for her, and plenty for Lenihan and Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen.

It has been a fortnight which has shown Europe in some ways ill-equipped to handle such a crisis while also capable of rising to the occasion and showing the strength of numbers -- if only on its second attempt.

European idealists will use that as an excuse to press for more federalism. Pragmatists will insist it has proved that an organisation of 27 nations is too unwieldy to be the first resort for savings banks and savers in such a fast-moving world -- and that such matters have to be left in the immediate control of national governments.

All About Angela Merkel • Nicolas Sarkozy • Gordon Brown • Silvio Berlusconi • Donald Tusk • European Commission • Brian Cowen • Jose Manuel Barroso