As Gordon Brown's Labour party crumbles, David Cameron’s Conservatives, with 24 MEPs, have emerged from the European elections as Britain’s largest party. An FT editorial argues, however, that the Tory leader’s determination to leave the largest centre-right alliance in the European parliament, the EPP, “is foolish and counter-productive”.
Cameron stands not only to alienate natural allies like Germany’s Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the FT argues. In seeking to form a new eurosceptic group with eccentric “socially very conservative” parties, “none of whom are in power”, Britain will forgo “leading roles in parliament.” A “rigid commitment to impotence”, complains a former UK permanent representative in Brussels.
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.