“It's an €85bn deal -- now it's up to us,” headlines the Irish Independent, one day after the EU and the IMF signed off on the €85bn bailout for the economically stricken country. The massive cash injection will cost an average of 5.8 per cent in interest, a figure the Irish Examiner describes as “crippling” and which will cost alone an average of €10 billion a year to repay. The Irish Independent writes that the aid comes on condition that Ireland contributes €17.5 billion to its own rescue from pension funds (€12.5 billion) and its cash reserves. “Until now,” the Dublin daily notes, “Irish and EU law had made it illegal for Ireland to use its pension fund to cover current expenditures.”
“This is not a rescue plan,” writes Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole – master of ceremonies at the 100,000 strong anti-austerity march of 27 November. “It is the longest ransom note in history: do what we tell you and you may, in time, get your country back.” Accusing the EU itself of being “mere pawns of the European banks and the ECB”, O’Toole writes, “There are two international options for dealing with broken and delinquent states: the Versailles option and the Marshall Plan option. After the first World War, the Versailles Treaty imposed harsh reparations on Germany, helping to destroy both Germany and Europe… Yesterday’s bailout of broken and delinquent Ireland is much more Versailles than Marshall.”
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.