“Rules of conduct ignored”, headlines De Volkskrant. According to the Dutch daily six European commissioners who resigned last spring now work as lobbyists or advisors for companies that could profit from their European knowledge and networks. De Volkskrant comments that rules governing conflicts of interest are inadequate and valuable European Commission information could easily leak to the companies concerned. Most striking examples are Charlie McCreevy, former commissioner for the Internal Market, who sits on the board of Ryanair, and Günter Verheugen, previously at Enterprise and Industry, who now has his own lobby company and works for the Royal Bank of Scotland. The Amsterdam daily also notes that 17 ex-commissioners, McCreevy included, have received up to €96,000 annually even after they landed jobs in lobbying or politics. The payments are intended to "ease life after Brussels" and are valid for three years.
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.