The long awaited Pidgin 2.5 came out two days ago, and one of the features I’m very happy with are the changes to the MSN protocol: offline messages are now supported.
This was one of the biggest problem for an European user, as MSN is the main IM protocol here, with around 90% market share. People in the industry tend to be connected in offline mode, and you couldn’t receive their IMs until now, they popped up all at once when you used the Microsoft Live client every month or so, not that great 
You can see the complete changelog here.
I would be bit sceptical with this MSN usage.. at least if you count also Eastern Europe among Europe :). Othewise 2.5 is of course a goog news.
Ok, maybe not 90% in Europe, but 70%. Have a look at http://news.softpedia.com/news/MSN-Messenger-the-Most-Popular-IM-Client-in-the-World-21325.shtml