De Volkskrant, 22 November 2010
“100,000 Dutch scream to save culture,” reports De Volkskrant. On 20 November, the nation’s “culture lovers” demonstrated in 70 of the country’s towns and cities to protest against government plans to raise VAT on theatre and concert tickets from 6% to 19% and to cut the Ministry of Culture’s budget by 200 million euros. The marchers pledged they would take further action in a wave of protest that would “spread like petrol” to oppose what they see as a bid to destroy their livelihood.
In Italy, workers in the culture sector have also gone out on strike. According to La Repubblica, 250,000 of them have heeded a union call to protest against budget cuts planned for 2011.
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.