"Surrealism was born in Belgium" and "all of those who've ever had any dealings with the Belgian administration know that absurdity can take very concrete forms" quips the Franfurter Rundschau. The latest victim being MEP Rosario Crocetta. Elected in June, the former mayor of Gela Sicily, is on the Cosa Nostra's blacklist. Three attempts on his life have already been foiled. In Italy he is under permanent police protection. When the European Parliament is in session in Strasbourg, France makes bodyguards available to him. However in Brussels where he has no such protection, "Crocetta feels vulnerable" and has therefore only ventured there three times, says the German daily. The Belgian Interior Minister is adamant that he did offer protection to Crocetta, on condition that he supply detailed information about the people threatening him. "Which is totally naive", says the MEP.
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.