Volkswagen's truckmaker Scania said on Friday it had agreed to buy bankrupt Northvolt's division that makes battery packs for heavy industry, reviving a transaction first presented in February, for an undisclosed price, Reuters reported. Sweden's Northvolt filed for bankruptcy last month in one of the country's largest corporate failures, bringing to an end Europe's best hope of developing a rival to Asian electric vehicle battery makers.

As the fallout from President Trump’s rewiring of global trade sets in across Europe, governments are putting in place billions of euros’ worth of “tariff shields” to protect their economies, companies and workers from uncertainty and the growing prospect of a recession, the New York Times reported. Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain announced more than 50 billion euros’ worth of financial support this week as businesses paused exports to the United States, warned of a hit to their finances and reckoned with putting employees on furlough.

The U.K. economy is growing more strongly than expected but U.S. President Trump’s barrage of tariff hikes and pauses threaten to stymie further acceleration ahead, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product increased by 0.5% in February, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed Friday. That was a better performance than the marginal growth economists had expected, and means the U.K. economy is very likely to record growth over the first quarter as a whole, barring an unexpectedly large reversal in March.

UBS Group Chair Colm Kelleher said Switzerland’s financial regulator and central bank set out additional capital requirements that would lead to a 50% increase compared with current levels, the Wall Street Journal reported. Swiss authorities have been working over the past year to reform of the country’s “too big to fail” banking laws in the wake of Credit Suisse’s rescue takeover by UBS, a move that is widely expected to result in higher capital demands for UBS.

Italy is seeking 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) from fintech group ION following a probe by prosecutors in the northern city of Bologna into alleged tax evasion over the 2013-2023 period, Reuters reported. The investigation adds to a string of tax evasion cases in Italy targeting U.S. tech companies, which are also at the centre of a wider EU response to the trade war sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.

U.S. trade tariffs could lead to layoffs in French industries worst affected by the steep duties, a government minister warned, the Wall Street Journal reported. Job losses are “a risk,” industry minister Marc Ferracci told radio station France Inter on Wednesday. “If the U.S. tariffs are made to last, there will be an impact on jobs,” he said. “In terms of numbers, it’s difficult to assess the impact,” which will depend on exporters’ ability to translate tariff costs into higher prices, or absorb them into their margins, he said.

Risks of a hit to the global economy and further sharp falls in financial markets have grown due to U.S. President Donald Trump's import tariffs and the UK is exposed to the fallout, the Bank of England said, Reuters reported. "The probability of adverse events, and the potential severity of their impact has risen," the BoE's Financial Policy Committee said on Wednesday. A major shift in global trade could damage the financial system by weakening economic growth, the FPC said in a summary of a two-day meeting which ended on Tuesday.

The European Central Bank should lower its key interest rate in response to the recent rise in U.S. tariffs, the head of the Bank of France said in an interview published today, the Wall Street Journal reported. U.S. President Trump last week imposed additional tariffs of 20% on imports from the European Union, adding to new duties on automobiles, aluminum and steel. Economists say that is likely to weaken growth in the eurozone as exports cool. “There is still room for rate cuts,” Francois Villeroy de Galhau told French newspaper Le Monde.

European Union officials on Monday were set to circulate a list of products they plan to hit with retaliatory tariffs, a major step toward striking back at President Trump as he ignites a global trade war, the New York Times reported. Representatives from across the bloc’s 27 member states are expected to vote on the wave of tariffs on Wednesday, and a solid coalition would be required to block them from taking effect. They are expected to go into force starting on April 15.