As usual, Alberto João Jardim did not beat about the bush: “If there is any further attempt to deny us the financial resources which are ours by right, we will have to consider the alternatives.” And for the feisty president of the regional government of Madeira, one of the alternatives, as Público explains, is threatening secession. This if the government in Lisbon does not allow the island to exceed limits set by the Regional Finance Law, which establishes indebtedness ceilings for Portuguese provincial governments. Jardim, who has governed the archipelago since 1978, is pushing through an infrastructure renewal programme he claims will begin to pay for itself by 2011 – a year in which he has also promised for the umpteenth time to retire from politics. He claims that independence will remain an option, although he has refrained from calling for secession because "the right conditions have yet to be established."
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.