“Missing in Europe,” runs German daily Tageszeitung's hard-hitting caption for pictures of five opponents to Alexander Lukashenko’s re-election in Belarus, as well as a human rights lawyer and a journalist. All were arrested or abducted by the secret services on December 19 during or after demonstrations protesting the outcome of the election. The crushing of the Belarusian opposition brings to mind the repression at the end of the 1990s and proves that any democratic advances were only temporary, the daily argues. “The EU must accept being questioned about how it plans to deal with its autocratic neighbour,” Tageszeitung writes. For the paper, the task first and foremost is to favour civil society by making it easier for Belarusians to obtain EU visas.
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.