Since 2006, Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch have tripled their profits in Spain, reports El Périódico, which leads with the front-page headline: "Risk agency business thriving." The Barcelona daily continues: “In what appeared to be a situation that could not get any worse, with the eurozone on the verge of breaking up, one of the three agencies has dealt a fatal blow." On 13 July, Fitch slapped yet another downgrade on Greek debt, but as the newspaper points out "it could have been Moody's or Standard & Poor's,” both of which also play a critical role in "what has already been described as an 'oligopoly' by the European Union."
The business is "as simple as it is astounding," remarks the daily. "Their enormous weight on financial markets and the absence of regulation in North America" has made these agencies "a major problem, especially for sovereign states." In response to their “cheerful” downgrading of public debt, governments "have been forced to use public money to fill gaps left by an economic crisis that was prompted by sub-primes derivatives, which, until days before the bubble burst, were rated AAA" by these selfsame agencies.
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.