The party line at present - amongst the European truck OEM cognoscenti - is that Eastern Europe will save us all, and when Eastern Europe no longer saves us all, never fear for the Russian are coming. To buy our trucks, thereby saving us all.

We're not too far away from uttering a dismissive snort here. There can be no doubt that Eastern Europe has had a significant impact upon European truck sales. Last year, the 2004 and 2007 accession countries added 59,592 plus 16 tonne units to the sales book, and added about six months to the lead time for truck buyers in Western Europe. MAN set up a plant in Cracow, Poland, AB Volvo splurged €100 million on a facility in Kaluga, Russia, Scania maintained an air of pompous silence about its plans and Paccar opened a parts warehouse in Hungary. Iveco backed away from taking a piece of Serbian OEM Zastava, and let us not forget Ashok Leyland, which acquired Czech OEM Avia. Presumably on the basis that it's a whole lot less trouble to buy than to start from scratch, Daimler looks a shoe-in for Troika Dialog's bit of KamAZ, and, in sum, there's a whole load of zeitgeist surfing going on in the new markets.

Two questions: will eastern European demand shore up faltering Western European demand, and, once the former gives way and the EE wave crashes upon the shore, will the Russians take over as a source of optimism?

German order intake is down by around 60 per cent at present. Last year, the German plus 16 tonne market was worth 68424 units. Let us assume that a 60 per cent order intake decline will hit deliveries - lead times are beginning to shorten - in Q2 2009. Let us then say that the German market could potentially drop by 30 per cent over the entire year. Seems plausible to us. BTW, MAN announced last week that it was to suspend further development of its Cracow plant. Anyway, these numbers would suggest a total figure for Europe's single biggest truck market of 47,897 units, and a deficiency - in one market alone - of 20,527 units. Is there growth of 35 per cent in Eastern Europe next year? Whilst the notion of decoupling is a lovely one, we'd argue not. Consider this; half of Europe's supply of lavatories now comes from Bulgaria. If construction stops - and it has in both the UK and Spain - demand for lavatories will dip. Demand for trucks to bring them from Bulgaria to the bathrooms of Middle England will also dip. QED. In sum, something very special needs to happen in Eastern Europe in order to mitigate the impact of falling demand in Western Europe.

Which brings us to Russia. Last year, Western European and a couple of US OEMs sold 17,817 plus 20 tonne trucks therein. The Russian truck market is, at present, dominated by demand driven by construction and oil and gas, and the two indigenous OEMs - KamAZ and GAZ - are both rather good at producing vehicles for this sector, shifting 49996 in the case of the former last year. Today, one of the Western European OEMs tells us that its Russian business is down by 30 per cent, and another tells us that 'it is not commenting in future sales in that market at present'. Earlier this week, at one of the UK's primary used vehicle auctions, a venue that has become so Russified over the past two years that it sells Borscht in the vending machines, there was a single Russian trader and his sole purchase was, by all accounts, a suspicious-looking meat-based snack product. Let us go back to the German numbers for a moment, and the likely shortfall of 20,527 units in 2009. Will Russian demand for Western trucks more than double?

It seems very unlikely.