The German government will not be able to finalise its 2024 budget before the end of the year, a senior ruling party official said on Thursday, as a fractious coalition tries to narrow differences on fixing a budget hole, Reuters reported. "This is however not a crisis," German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said, playing down the need to get the budget through parliament before the end of the year. "I have realised that the coalition partners have very ambitious timetables," Lindner said on Thursday in Brussels.

Spanish Economy Minister Nadia Calvino expressed hope an agreement on the reform of EU fiscal rules could be clinched as soon as Thursday evening, while her German counterpart said he thought a deal was possible this week, Reuters reported. EU finance ministers are discussing changes to the rules on Thursday and Friday, aiming to agree on a joint position that would then be negotiated with the European Parliament early in 2024. Spain holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Finland has experienced an unprecedented number of business bankruptcies in the 48th week of 2023, with 85 companies being declared insolvent. This figure is the highest weekly total since Finland's Asiakastieto Oy began its weekly bankruptcy tracking in 2019, the Helsinki Times reported. According to Jaakko Nors, a product owner at Asiakastieto who specializes in bankruptcy data, by the end of this year, over 2,700 companies are projected to have filed for bankruptcy.

An insolvency filing by Signa Holding shines some light on the complex dealings of the umbrella organization of Rene Benko’s property and retail empire. The court application, seen by Bloomberg, includes a preliminary list of creditors, offering a glimpse of an operation that lured high-profile investors as it lapped up trophy assets like New York’s Chrysler Building, Selfridges department store in London and Berlin’s KaDeWe.

Germany's coalition partners intensified efforts on Wednesday to find a way to plug a 17-billion-euro ($18.3 billion) hole in next year's budget after failing to resolve the crisis overnight, increasing uncertainty about financial plans in Europe's biggest economy, Reuters reported. The failure of talks between coalition leaders before Wednesday means it is unlikely parliament will approve a 2024 budget by the end of the year, leaving in limbo spending plans from climate projects to benefits and for local authorities.

Britain's data protection watchdog warned companies to consider people's privacy rights whenever they use artificial intelligence (AI), or face not just fines but losing the public's trust in the technology, Reuters reported. The country's Information Commissioner, John Edwards, said at a speech on Wednesday that companies must protect their customer's personal information in all circumstances when they are using AI. "You cannot expect to utilise AI in your products or services without considering privacy, data protection and how you will safeguard people’s rights," Edwards said.

Another European Central Bank hike in borrowing costs probably won’t happen in light of last week’s consumer-price data, according to Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel, Bloomberg News reported. “The most recent inflation number has made a further rate increase rather unlikely,” she said in an interview with Reuters that was transcribed on the ECB’s website. The typically hawkish ECB official spoke days after a report showed euro-area consumer-price growth slowed to 2.4%, far less than economists had anticipated.

SBI Holdings Inc., Rakuten Group Inc. and Monex Group Inc. are among brokerages in Japan that also sold Credit Suisse’s riskiest bonds to retail investors, highlighting the widening fallout of these products in the country, Bloomberg News reported. The operators of the nation’s three major online brokerages offered the Swiss lender’s Additional Tier 1 notes for a minimum purchase amount of $200,000, according to copies of the firms’ product explanatory materials seen by Bloomberg News.

A busy month for rights issues portends a potential increase in this type of fund raising, as cash-strapped European companies struggle with high rates and looming debt maturities, Bloomberg News reported. Rights offerings worth around $7.6 billion were announced in November, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The total was dominated by a €3.9 billion ($4.2 billion) issue by beleaguered nursing home operator Orpea SA, the first of its proposed capital increases, and a 775-million Swiss franc ($817 million) issue by sensors maker AMS-Osram AG as part of its financing plan.