After breakdown in recent weeks, the Franco-German motor is up and running again. This is what Europe’s key partnership sought to put across, all smiles, on 31 March in Berlin after a German cabinet meeting. Finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble had invited his French opposite number, Christine Lagarde, to sit in, which was a first. On that occasion, notes the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) Lagarde said her recent criticisms of German exports were actually a "compliment" to German competitiveness. "The Franco-German reconciliation was played out around a tax on banks that Berlin wants to impose at European and international level, with Paris’ backing", reports Le Figaro. The NZZ explains that Germany is planning to create a special fund fed by a mandatory charge on each bank based on its systemic risk – i.e. the impact its failure would have on the national economy. Berlin estimates it could clear €1.2 billion p.a. this way.
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.