“Russia makes a step towards Poland,” headlines Gazeta Wyborcza the day after Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Warsaw. And even if, as commentators suggest, it has yielded no tangible results, bilateral relations have certainly improved. “The thaw in the Polish-Russian relations makes foreign policy an area of national interests and not one of fear or resentment,” enthuses the Warsaw daily. This could also result in smoother co-operation between the EU and Russia. EUobserver.com reports that at the 7 December summit in Brussels, the EU and Russia will sign a memorandum in which the union is to lift in part some of its objections to Russia joining the World Trade Organisation. As EU Neighbourhood Policy commissioner Stefan Füle puts it, the move could be yet another symbol of, “the psychological process of reconciliation following the Cold War”.
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.