The days may be getting darker, but the future's looking bright for Monaco.

Autumn has brought two pieces of good news for The Principality. First, the OECD finally took Monaco off its list of uncooperative tax havens at the end of September. It's not so very surprising, since the hard work of Franck Biancheri has resulted in the execution of the 12 agreements that were necessary.

A second reason for celebrating was the end of the monitoring procedure relating to Monaco's membership of the Council of Europe. Since 2004, the Principality has been working towards fulfilling the obligations required by membership. In total, 40 of the 250 conventions have been signed, and as a mark of confidence that Monaco's efforts will continue, the monitoring procedure was closed at the end of October.