For Tageszeitung, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the social-democrat candidate for the German chancellor's office in 2009 elections, was just a little too smarmy when he presented his campaign team on 30 July. Angela Merkel is on holiday, and the SPD, which trails the Chancellor's CDU/CSU by 15 points in the polls, wants to give the impression that anything is possible. Leading with the headline "To save party of living-dead, sinister candidate brings in new blood," the Berlin daily notes that women are well-represented on the team, which includes plenty of unknowns alongside all SPD government ministers with the exception of Ulla Schmidt – who has been vilified in the wake of a scandal concerning her car. "The message is clear," says the TAZ, while taking the view that it completely misses the mark – an overnight initiative to include young people and women will do little to distract attention from "the dinosaur status of party leaders."
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.