THIS WEEK:BETWEEN MARATHON crunch talks and late-night crisis meetings, Europe's top politicos must be pretty tired of the sight of each other at this stage, but there's no respite ahead.

This week EU leaders are facing into yet another high-stakes powwow at the bloc’s summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.

Heads of state are expected to clash when they meet, this time over the issue of strengthening the union’s financial firewalls, which would involve boosting the lending capacity of the euro zone’s bailout funds. A decision on this issue was long-fingered last autumn, and while euro zone finance ministers have agreed on the principle of an increase, it is believed that German chancellor Angela Merkel continues to hold out against such a move.

EU representatives could be forgiven for feeling summit fatigue, but best buds Enda Kenny and Nicolas Sarkozy are probably looking forward to the chance of a good catch-up – if their schoolboyish high-jinkery at Davos is anything to go by. At least if tensions run high and talks threaten to become deadlocked, we can rely on “Kenkozy” to lighten the mood.