The head of Slovenia's central bank, Bostjan Jazbec, has said it will consider asking for outside help if the country's funding costs stay high. He also said Slovenia's GDP would shrink by 2.6% this year, more than April's 1.9% forecast.

Slovenia's banks are largely state-owned and saddled with bad loans worth 22.5% of its GDP.

Mr Jazbec's comments are likely to fuel speculation over whether Slovenia will be bailed out by the EU.

Still hope

Mr. Jazbec said he would consider asking for aid if yields on Slovenia's bonds remained high.

During a news conference, he said the country was doing everything it could to bring its funding costs down.

"If that is not successful, then there is a possibility to ask for help within various programmes," he added.

Meanwhile, Slovenia's Prime Minister, Alenka Bratusek, has admitted to parliament the amount needed to rescue the banks is "completely unknown".

But Ms Bratusek told STA, the state-owned news agency: "We are very intensely preparing measures that are needed, so as to avoid asking for help."

The results of the bank's stress-tests, out at the end of November, will indicate whether or not a bailout is needed.

Eurozone members can ask for help from the European Stability Mechanism, set up in 2012.

Italian GDP revised down - The Italian recession is deeper than thought. New data released this morning shows that the economy shrank by 0.3% in the second quarter of 2013, worse than the 0.2% first estimated. That means that Italian GDP is 2.1% less than a year ago, not the 2% as initially thought.

As if prime minister Enrico Letta didn't have enough to worry about with Silvio Berlusconi's fate still in the balance.

 ISTAT, Italy's statistics body, reported that household spending continued to shrink in the face of Italy's economic woes, falling by 0.4% during the April-June quarter.

Capital spending and imports also dropped, by 0.3% quarter-on-quarter in both cases.

The year-on-year data underlined how Italy's economy has suffered over the last 12 months. Consumption is down by 2.4%, capital expenditure is 5.9% lower, while imports are down 4.6%. Exports are 0.2% higher than a year ago.

Here are the details:

Over in the bond markets, Italian government borrowing costs have risen above Spain's for the first time in 18 months. It means Italy is being priced as a (slightly) bigger risk than Spain, in a sign that the Berlusconi Conundrum is dragging Italy towards a new crisis. Italian 10-year bond yields are trading at 4.485% this morning compared to 4.481% for Spain. That's must be a minor relief for Madrid, whose borrowing costs have been pushed up by allegations of government corruption and fears over bad bank debts.

BRUSSELS - Greece is to get €49.1 billion worth of bailout funds after eurozone finance ministers in Brussels agreed the latest tranche of emergency funding on Thursday (13 December). Athens will receive €34.3 billion "in the following days", with the remaining funds, some of which will fund overcapitalization and resolution costs of Greek banks, to be paid out in the first three months of 2013. The money will be paid out by the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). The decision, which was taken after a meeting lasting under two hours, follows months of marathon talks between Greece and its creditors. It also comes at the end of a successful week for Athens after a debt buy-back which saw the government buy €31.9 billion of bonds at just over a third of their face value. Speaking with reporters following the meeting, Economic commissioner Olli Rehn said that the deal marked the end of an "odyssey" for Greece. He commented that the debt-laden country had confounded the "Cassandras" who had been "convinced that the game was up for Greece in the euro area."

BRUSSELS - The 2013 EU budget has been agreed after MEPs signed off on a deal worth €132.8 billion in Strasbourg on Wednesday (12 December). The agreement breaks months of deadlock between MEPs, the commission and national governments.  It increases EU spending next year by just €3.8 billion, over €5 billion less than the sums demanded by MEPs and the EU executive. It also includes a controversial deal providing just €6.1 billion of emergency funding to the European Commission to cover outstanding bills from 2012.  In October, the commission tabled an emergency budget worth €9 billion, with the EU's student exchange Erasmus programme and the European Social Fund among items facing a cash-flow crisis.  However, with member states refusing to stump up the extra cash in full, the EU executive will now roll over 2012 payments worth roughly €2.5 billion into 2013. Speaking in Strasbourg, Alain Lamassoure, the centre-right chair of the assembly's budget committee, complained that by rolling over payments the deal "respects the treaty but betrays its spirit."  Green budgetary spokesperson Helga Trupel said the agreement would "lead to a budget hole of at least €9 billion at the end of next year."  For his part, Italian conservative Giovanni La Via, who drafted the parliament's position on the budget, said that the funds would "guarantee investment in growth and job-creation."  Following the vote, the EU's budget commissioner warned that a repeat cash-shortfall would probably occur in 2013.
"The approved budget will in all likelihood not be sufficient to pay the incoming bills ... the pressure on the 2013 EU budget will be tremendous. There is a serious risk that we will run out of funds early in the course of next year," warned Janusz Lewandowski.
He added that "by systematically cutting the commission's estimates, the Council transforms the EU annual budget in a budget for nine to 10 months; last year we ran out of cash to pay all the claims in November, this year was in October and next year I expect this to happen even earlier."  The budget includes a 6.4 percent increase for EU research and development funding, alongside a 6.3 percent rise for the trans-European transport network.  The foreign aid budget also rises by 1.9 percent to cover extra funds to support Palestine. The EU's three main institutions will see a real terms cut.

"nationalists are NOT extremist" - Extremists are the NATZI's running Europe !!!

'Extremists and hooligans'  are Merkel , Barroso and their  unelectedcroonies !!!!

Diverse groups including Polish patriots, nationalists and groups of football hooligans took part in Sunday's march. Many of the young men wore scarves or balaclavas over their faces.

Nationalist marches have been growing in size on the national holiday, with leftists turning out to oppose them, says the BBC's Adam Easton, in Warsaw.

Last year's march dwarfed its predecessors, with numbers swollen by football supporters outraged by a government clampdown on violent fans.

However, two other marches marking the day in 1918 when Poland regained its sovereignty after years of foreign rule passed without incident.

To prevent clashes this year the marches took different routes.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski also organised his own Independence Day march with military veterans in an attempt to reclaim the day from what he called "extremists and hooligans".

Ahead of the march he appealed for a less polarised society.

"Today public life is poisoned by excessive rows," he said. "We should be critical, but criticism should not mean mutual destruction."

The 11 November celebration marks the day when Poland regained its independence, 123 years after it was divided between Russia, Prussia and the Austrian Empire.