Today's front pages

The Roman daily owned by the brother of Silvio Berlusconi, leads with the former Italian PM's decision to quit the People of Liberty (PdL), the party he founded and led. He now aims to revamp and relaunch the formation which is currently rocked by corruption scandals.

Berlusconi leaves PdL – Il Giornale

Luis Maria Linde, governor of the Bank of Spain, has described official forecasts of a recession limited to 0.5% of GDP in 2013 as "optimistic". He believes that the revaluation of pensions will make it more difficult to reduce the national deficit to 6.2% of GDP and is asking for "additional measures".

Linde warns government – Cinco Días

INSEE, the French institute for economic statistics, has downgraded the national growth forecast for the fourth quarter. After three consecutive quarters at zero growth, economic activity will continue to stagnate. Growth is expected to average 0.2% this year, instead of the expected 0.4%, while buying power is expected to decline by 0.5% largely as a result of tax increases.

Growth, buying power: the year of double breakdown – Les Echos

It has been ten months since Budapest sent a credit application to the IMF but no agreement seems to be emerging. The European Commission, which monitors the negotiations, has expressed concern over low growth which it estimates at -0.3% in 2012. The IMF and the government have predicted a 0% and 0.1% rate. The draft budget that the Orbán government will present today will set a deficit of less than 3% of GDP.

Is it still far? – Heti Válasz

According to a study by the World Bank, 80% of the 165,000 Roma of working age in Slovakia are unemployed, and a third of their children go to bed at least once a month without eating. The situation is worse than Bulgaria and Romania, where 40% of Roma work.

One Roma out of five has a job – SME

While the number of non-Western immigrant patients reached 50% in the hospitals of large Dutch cities, non-western immigrant specialists account for 5-6% of the medical profession. This is an estimate as ethnic statistics are forbidden. A lack of proficiency in Dutch, a higher average age and professional prejudice can explain this, writes the Amsterdam daily, all the more surprising given that a third of medical students are non-Western.

Lack of skilled immigrants – De Volkskrant

The Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) has taken very seriously an interview with Sheikh Omar Bakri with Bulgarian daily 24 Tchassa. The radical Islamist, nicknamed the Tottenham Ayatollah (the working class neighbourhood of North London where he once had an office) considers that Romania, which was formerly a part of the Ottoman Empire, is an Islamic land that Muslims must liberate.

SRI faced with first direct terrorist threat – Evenimentul zilei