“Putin to come back next spring”, headlines Gazeta Wyborcza writing on the “biggest riddle in Russian politics in recent years:” the Kremlin succession that is to follow presidential elections next March. Last weekend, the ruling United Russia Party, as well as current president Dmitry Medvedev, officially announced their support for candidate Putin’s return to the highest post in the country – Vladimir Vladimirovich served as head of State between 2000 and 2008. “Even though the presidential election is almost half a year away, we already know who will be the winner”, writes the Warsaw daily. According to independent Russian commentator Leonid Radzihovsky, “Putin has long been seen as the leader of the nation” and has, in fact, no competition as the “ethics and professionalism of [Russian] elites continues to decline”.
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.