Squawk Box (Europe)

Anko Beldsnijder, senior portfolio manager at MainFirst Bank, told CNBC, "as an investor you are pretty much in this drama as well, as in this extremely top down driven market it is unavoidable that you focus on that, it is more interesting if you talk to company managements as they seem to ignore the drama much more."

Barry Dixon, head of research at Davy, told CNBC, "defensive is companies which have good strong fundamentals, in interesting markets, that have either strong positions within existing markets, have good technologies that are disruptive and are gaining market share, strong fundamentals in terms of balance flows and cash flows."

Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis, told CNBC, "we are quite confident regarding 2012, we believe it will not be an easy year but based on all our assets, our very solid balance sheet, the fact that last year we have been number one in new business, all this gives us a feeling that 2012, albeit difficult, will be a good year for Publicis."

Brady Dougan, CEO of Credit Suisse, told CNBC, "the fourth quarter was obviously disappointing and I wish we had done better in terms of our performance, but we did work very hard in the fourth quarter to accelerate a lot of our change programs which I think puts us in a very good position coming into 2012."

Chris Dedicoat, president of EMEA and Russia at Cisco, told CNBC, "I think overall they were an exceptional set of results with 11 percent year over year revenue growth and EMEA also saw 7 percent bookings growth and 15 percent revenue growth."

Paul Walsh, CEO of Diageo, told CNBC, "I think these numbers are very good, they are very balanced, we've got good topline, good bottom line and great brand assurance but what I am trying to convey is that it is still a very uncertain world out there, but despite that uncertainty I am very confident that our brands, our people and our regions will do well."

Yogi Dewan, founder of Hassium Asset Management, told CNBC, "there is so much uncertainty over what is on their balance sheets, exposure to Greek debt, exposure to European sovereign debt, exposure to real estate, the guidance we are getting from banks is really quite poor at the moment so we just steer clear of them across the board."

Patrick Flynn, CFO of ING, told CNBC, "the fourth quarter has been a tougher market as a consequence of what we have seen in Europe, but overall it has been a very good year, particularly if you compare it to last year, our underlying results are up 15 percent to 3.7 billion and our net results doubled compared to the prior year."

Eva Kaili, MP for the PASOK party, told CNBC, "I do believe there are important issues on the table, so I think negotiations are in process so it is not just a delay, we are looking for a new policy now and I do think that the leaders have to do their best because they also have to pass it through the parliament and convince people that this is the right recipe this time."