German inflation surprisingly accelerated in February, further complicating the European Central Bank’s task after overshoots this week in other parts of the continent, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices advanced 9.3% from a year ago, up from January’s 9.2% gain, driven by services and food costs. The move came even as Germany moved to limit household heating bills that rocketed because of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The reading for Europe’s biggest economy puts more pressure on the ECB after French inflation hit a euro-era record and Spanish price growth defied estimates to moderate.

Italy posted firm economic growth of 3.7% last year but the budget deficit far exceeded official forecasts due to the cost of tax incentives for green buildings, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Growth slowed from 7.0% (upwardly revised from 6.7%) in 2021 but it was in line with the government's most recent projection, as the euro zone's third largest economy held up better than expected during the first three quarters.

The debt recovery agency Air Claim, which specializes in helping customers of airlines recover their money, asked in court for the insolvency of low-cost carrier Blue Air – now 75% controlled by the Romanian government, Romanian-Insider.com reported. The pre-insolvency period for the company ended on February 22. The court did not yet approve the request filed by Air Claim, according to Economica.net.

Credit Suisse Group AG failed in its duties as an asset manager and violated Swiss supervisory law in its operation of $10 billion in investment funds with now-bankrupt financing partner Greensill Capital Management, the Wall Street Journal reported. Switzerland’s financial regulator, Finma, outlined a range of measures the bank must take to improve governance and comply with Swiss rules. It said it opened enforcement proceedings against four former Credit Suisse managers. Finma doesn’t have any powers to impose direct financial penalties or to prosecute companies.

Investors boosted bets on the peak for European Central Bank interest rates to 4% for the first time after inflation in France and Spain came in unexpectedly hot, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices in France jumped by a euro-era record 7.2% from a year ago in February as food and services costs increased. Spain saw a 6.1% advance. Analysts had estimated price gains would remain unchanged at 7% in France and slow in Spain.

Euro zone inflation pressures have begun to ease, including for all-important core prices, but the European Central Bank will not end rate hikes until it is confident price growth is heading back towards 2%, ECB Chief Economist Philip Lane said, Reuters reported. The ECB has raised rates by 3 percentage points since July and promised another half a percentage increase in March, in the hope that more expensive funding will curtail demand enough to get price growth down from levels still above 8%.

Britain and the European Union have reached a new agreement on post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland, raising hopes that more than six years of wrangling over the U.K.’s departure from the bloc may finally come to an end, the Associated Press reported. The deal, announced Monday by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, is designed to replace existing rules that have been criticized for effectively creating a customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, weakening the region’s links to Britain.

Banks are becoming the leading buyers of some euro zone governments' bond sales, taking advantage of surging interest rates as the European Central Bank looks to reduce its presence in the market, Reuters reported. Euro zone governments need private buyers to pick up some 400 billion euros ($422 billion) of additional debt this year.

UK taxpayers will be on the hook for as much as £200 billion ($240 billion) of potential losses from the Bank of England’s quantitative easing program after the Treasury lodged plans to cover any future shortfall with parliament last week, Bloomberg News reported.

A new deal agreed between Britain and the European Union to amend the Northern Ireland Protocol will allow the Stormont assembly to stop EU laws applying in the province, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday, Reuters reported. "Many had called for Stormont to have a say over these laws. But the 'Stormont break' goes further and means that Stormont can in fact stop them from applying in Northern Ireland," Sunak told a news conference.