Today's front pages

Incensed by his efforts to thwart the proposed 5 - 6.8% increase in the EU’s 2014-2020 budget, the EU’s leaders intend to isolate British Prime Minister David Cameron at the EU summit this Thursday and create a long-term budget without the UK. In a speech yesterday the PM called on the EU to “stop picking the public’s pocket.”

EU leaders will gang up on PM – The Independent

The Scandinavian airline — which is 50% controlled by the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish states — has avoided bankruptcy. Trade unions have accepted a cost restructuring plan, which will notably include pay cuts of up to 17% and 6,000 layoffs from the company’s 15,000-strong workforce.

Restart for SAS – Svenska Dagbladet

A Zagreb court has sentenced Ivo Sanader, who served as Croatia’s prime minister from 2003 until his sudden resignation in 2009, to 10 years in prison for corruption. Sanader was accused of accepting 10 million euros from Hungarian energy giant MOL and 480,000 euros from the Austrian bank, Hypo Alpe Adria, in the 1990s.

Sanader verdict – Večernji list

On 16 November, Hungary adopted its third austerity plan in less than six weeks. The plan, which aims to cut public spending by a further 90 billion forints (316.3 million euros) and to reduce the deficit to 2.7% of GDP by 2013, makes use of a controversial tax on banks provisionally introduced in 2010, and raises the rate of tax on energy companies from 27% to 50%. Both of these measures are disputed by the IMF, which has been negotiating a bailout package with Budapest for more than a year.

IMF reluctantly receives government’s new plan – Magyar Hírlap

Following in the footsteps of France and Spain, Germany has now acquired a stake in EADS. Both Germany and France have a 12% share in the aerospace and defence corporation, while Spain continues to control 5.5%. None too pleased by what it believes to be inappropriate interventionism, the Dusseldorf daily argues that Chancellor Angela Merkel and EADS chief executive Tom Enders have given up on any plan to make EADS a normal company.

Return of the state – Handelsblatt

Italian police have arrested six men for allegedly holding Giuseppe Spinelli hostage. Spinelli, an accountant working for former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, was held for six hours on 15 October of this year. According to the daily, the suspects demanded 35 million euros in exchange for documents that would overturn a 2011 judgement to the effect that Silvio Berlusconi should pay 560 million euros in damages for irregularities in his takeover of the publisher Mondadori in 1989.

Mystery of Berlusconi’s cashier – La Repubblica

The French carmaker’s latest industrial plan for 2014-2016 provides for the creation of 1,300 jobs in its factories in Palencia, Seville and Valladolid, which will soon receive a visit from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on 21 November. Renault chose the Spanish sites over facilities in Turkey and France in the wake of the conclusion of an agreement on “more flexible working conditions” with Spanish trade unions.

Renault ok’s Spain – Cinco Días