The EU had the choice between "the jump-start or chaos," at the Brussels eurozone summit, reckons French daily Libération. "What national political will rejected fiercely until recently, speculative folly imposes. In effect, the Union is now a federal one. And it will be called upon to become even more so," the centre-left daily says in a leader article. "Of course, the United States of Europe is currently taking the form of a monetary and financial white elephant [and] of patches invented in an emergency to fill the gaps in the eurozone. But the essentials are there: European leaders, [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel and [French President] Nicholas Sarkozy in the lead, have understood that it is better to remain in the history books as responsible for re-founding Europe rather than for digging its grave. Now the political continent must be cleared. The member states must get beyond the all-so-reassuring intergovernmental stage, and finally yield power to the European Parliament," the paper concludes.
The leader of Greece’s leftist alliance SYRIZA is the new bright hope of Greek politics. Steering a course between pragmatism and the rhetoric of class warfare, he has unsettled Berlin, and not just those who back Angela Merkel's austerity policies. 
Europe’s economic woes have forced us to try to understand the secret Olympian world of global finance. But now that we pay more attention to bond yields and stability mechanisms, isn’t it clear that the experts up on their lofty peaks don’t know what’s going on either? 
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is hosted by Azerbaijan, a country that is far from being a model democracy. An Estonian journalist takes a critical look at the deferential treatment enjoyed by the regime in Baku.