“European disunion,” headlines La Tribune. The business daily reports that the 18 October agreement on the Stability Pact between the French president and the German chancellor has prompted a hostile response from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Parliament. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet made known his profound disagreement with “Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel’s political hijacking of the future of Europe’s governance,” writes Les Echos. Both the European Commission and the ECB “were in favour of automatic and immediate sanctions which should not be subject to a six month probationary period or a qualified majority vote by the European Council as proposed by Paris and Berlin,” explains La Tribune. France and Germany have moved to “reassert the political control they would otherwise surrendered to economic experts and the European Commission,” points out Les Echos.
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.