“New budget storm erupts over Brussels profligacy,” headlines The Times. Although the EU budget is not formally on the agenda of the European Council summit 28-29 October, British PM David Cameron will “implore European leaders to live within their means and rein back plans for a 6 per cent rise in overall EU spending to £114 billion (€130 billion) a year.” Mr Cameron is under increasing pressure from his party’s Eurosceptic fringe which is demanding cuts to the EU budget and the repatriation of powers to Britain. The London daily notes that Cameron “is unlikely to prevent an increase of less than 2.9 per cent, the rise already endorsed by the European Council, under which Britain’s contribution would rise by almost £500 million (€572 million) next year – even as UK government departments face cuts of 25 per cent.”
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.