Must-Reads From Around the World: June 1, 2012

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DANI POZODANI POZO / AFP / Getty Images

President of Bankia, Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri, speaks during a press conference, in Madrid on May 26, 2012. Spain's fourth-biggest bank, Bankia, said it will ask the government for 19 billion euros ($24 billion) in the largest bank bailout in the country's history.

Blame, Banks, and Bailouts – As it emerges that Spain’s foundering banks may soon need a bailout, the New York Times argues that the cost of this rescue would leave “little behind should investors turn on Italy next” and the piece identifies the main problem in Europe as being “a lack of ideas on how to fix Europe’s mess.”What’s more, politicians must muster up “the courage to tell their voters the basic hard truths” about the nature of the crisis, and how it occurred, and ultimately, about “their own countries’ complicity in the crisis.”

Definitely Maybe Yes – Reuters follows the results of the Irish E.U. referendum as they are counted Friday, suggesting from early counting that voters have predominantly voted “Yes” to backing a referendum on the European Union’s new fiscal treaty. Lucinda Creighton, Irish European affairs minister, reports that the government is “very, very confident” about the result being a majority “Yes” vote, which analysts believe would give Ireland “a better chance of getting back to bond markets.”

Jubilee Blues – As Britain gears up for a four-day long weekend of celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the Guardian runs a piece decrying the monarchy, describing that at the heart of this pomp and grandeur is a “great emptiness, the nothingness, the Wizard of Oz in emperor’s clothes.” Criticizing the tendency of Brits to pay “homage” to the royals, it suggests that they “are the apogee of celebrity culture, because there is nothing there but empty celebrity,” and even argues that they’re “the living, breathing negation of the myth of genetic superiority.”

Left Heft – Greek daily eKathimerini tracks the last opinion poll held by a Public Issue survey, before the Greek elections on June 17, presenting the leftist party Syriza maintaining “a clear lead” over the more conservative New Democracy, with 31.5% of the vote – 1.5% more than the previous week. Nevertheless, it points out that Syriza’s apparent popularity is “short of enough support for a clear parliamentary majority.” It also argues that Fotis Kouvelis, chief of Dimar, the democratic left party, is the “most popular party head,” ahead of Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras.