Süddeutsche Zeitung, 1 July 2010
It took a month-long “national farce” and three rounds of voting in the Bundestag for Christian-Dem Christian Wulff to eke in, on 30 June, as the nation’s new president. He succeeds Horst Köhler, who resigned, to the country’s surprise, at the end of May. Rammed through by Angela Merkel, Wulff won’t have it easy, predicts the Süddeutsche Zeitung: his rival for the post, Joachim Gauck (independent but backed by the Social Democrats), was far more popular. But the chancellor is the real “loser of the day”: without “authority” or “sympathy”, her hold on the helm is now shakier than ever.
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.