"Since the beginning of the year when the Lisbon Treaty took effect, MEPs have been rallying to defend the ‘Community method’ against supposed onslaughts by member states and intergovernmental drift,” reports Le Monde. The four main political groupings – conservatives, socialists, liberal democrats and Greens – are all ready and raring to fight for their approach in a number of domains, explains the French daily.
The deal Catherine Ashton pushed through on 21 June tracing the contours of Europe’s future diplomatic corps is one episode in Parliament’s battle against "the states’ stranglehold on Brussels". The European Commission, Council and Parliament reached a compromise based on a corps of about 7,000 diplomats, 60% of whom are to be European officials and 40% national officials.
The MEPs “had called in vain for the service to be integrated into the European Commission so its operation and budget could be better controlled”, adds Le Monde. They feel the Commission should rely on them to see Community projects through. "The confusion surrounding the Greek bailout showed the limitations of inter-state cooperation,” stresses ex-Belgian PM and the Liberals’ parliamentary leader Guy Verhofstadt, who is regarded as “one of the most influential men in the assembly". This positioning is nothing new, explains Le Monde, but the Lisbon Treaty has “reinvigorated” it. "The MEPs have new perogatives and intend to use them: more codecision with the Council, greater budgetary clout and the power to reject international treaties outright." Their offensive, concludes the daily, won’t fail to incur the wrath of European capitals and the Council.
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.