Should Europe introduce a 0.15 % tax on bankers' balance sheets, as Barack Obama is proposing to do in the United States? "Don't say no too quickly" to the latest idea from the new generation of "tax gurus" who have emerged in the financial crisis, advises Die Presse. The Viennese daily notes that hot on the heels of Sweden, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann (SPÖ) is now taking an interest in the scheme, which he hopes will net 500 million euros for the national exchequer, and the plan will be on the agenda for the next informal meeting of Europe's finance ministers. "Major banks cannot go bankrupt, because governments are obliged to bail them out," and they should pay for this privilege, argues Die Presse. But customers would probably end up footing the bill for the new financial charges and not the "financial acrobats" who manage the country's money. For their part, the bankers who are mounting a counter attack. The head of RZB bank has retorted that "Austrian banks were not responsible for triggering the financial crisis." And if Austria is the only state to introduce such a tax, the bankers have let it be known that they will delocalize: "Bratislava is only 60 kilometres from Vienna".
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.