“Merkel's syndrome,” headlines Cicero, in publishing a thick dossier of charges against the Chancellor. With articles titled “The Phantom of the Chancery,” “The Loss of Credibility”, “Who Governs Loses” or “Save Our Rule of Law”, the message from the Berlin monthly is clear: after six years in office, and with a third term in sight, the Germans still do not understand who their head of government is or what she wants to accomplish. “The Merkel method, which consists of defusing and depoliticising the highly dramatic and political issues – climate, nuclear power, Afghanistan, uncontrollable financial markets, the euro crisis – is not enough for good governance.” Cicero, which feels that a third term would be one too many, is predicting dark times ahead for “Mutti”: “The truce that journalists observed towards the first-ever woman Chancellor has lasted almost six years. Many commentators have treated her with kid gloves, criticising affectionately and with a great deal of understanding her sloshing about in democracy without any guiding vision whatsoever. That's over now.”
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.