Nearly a month after a court ruling left a hole in Germany’s 2024 budget, the government in Berlin introduced a new spending plan that included cuts in programs to address climate change, but confirmed its commitment to 8 billion euros ($8.6 billion) in direct military aid to Ukraine, the New York Times reported. The new budget will comply with the constitutional rules against taking on new debt, the government said. "We are forging ahead with the climate-neutral transformation of our country. We are strengthening social cohesion.
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Resources Per Country
- Albania
- Austria
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Gibraltar
- Greece
- Guernsey
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Italy
- Jersey
- Kosovo
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Macedonia
- Malta
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- Vatican City
The largest unit in the troubled real estate group founded by Rene Benko is urgently seeking €600 million ($647 million) of financing from funds as it prepares to file for insolvency, Bloomberg News reported. Under the terms of a deal proposed by Signa Prime, investors would provide €300 million of so-called debtor-in-possession financing by Tuesday, with the remainder made available at a later stage of the process, according to people familiar with the matter. The cash would finance the company’s restructuring under an insolvency process known as self-administration in Austria.
While private equity funds were prepared to keep injecting capital during the pandemic, believing that profits would stabilize again once normal operations resumed, now they are looking more selectively at the long-term viability of the companies they own, Bloomberg News reported. “Sponsors have to pick which businesses to keep supporting,” said David Morris, a senior managing director and head of the UK restructuring practice at FTI Consulting. “Part of that will depend on how far away they think they are from value and the speed at which they could go back to value.
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Britain's payments regulator on Wednesday provisionally proposed a cap on cross-border interchange fees on retailers and other businesses charged by Mastercard (MA.N) and Visa (V.N) on transactions made between the UK and European single market, Reuters reported. The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) said a cap would protect businesses from overpaying, after it published interim findings of a market review on interchange fees charged since Brexit, when the bloc's longstanding cap ceased to apply in Britain.
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The City of London, Britain’s historic financial district, is awash with construction, the intensity of which is not expected to let up soon, the New York Times reported. The City of London Corporation, the district’s governing body, has approved 10 new office towers, including one that will exceed the height of all others in the area, known locally as the Square Mile. Altogether, more than five million square feet of office space is under construction, with another five million square feet in the pipeline.
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U.K. wage growth slowed at the sharpest pace in almost two years, a further sign that the labor market is cooling in response to a flagging economy, Bloomberg News reported. Average earnings excluding bonuses rose 7.3% in the three months through October compared with a year ago, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday. That’s down from an upwardly revised 7.8% in the period through September. Economists had expected a figure of 7.4%.
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Mercon Coffee Corp., the bankrupt global coffee trader, must try to negotiate a cheaper way to fund its restructuring case after a U.S. judge rejected a proposed loan from Coöperatieve Rabobank, Bloomberg News reported. Rabobank had agreed to loan Mercon as much as $40 million that would pay about 15% interest, plus an upfront fee of 3% on part of the debt and the payment of $3.8 million in expenses, according to court documents and Bankruptcy Judge Michael E. Wiles.
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Sweden-based Nilar International AB filed for insolvency on Dec. 1 and has appointed Lars Nylund, an attorney for Advokatfirman Fylgia, as trustee in the bankruptcy, PV-Magazine.com reported. “The trustee is continuing the company’s operations with the aim of finding a new owner for the business,” the company said on its website.
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Russians have enjoyed a dramatic increase in living standards over the course of President Vladimir Putin's nearly 24 years at the helm of Russian politics. On Friday, Putin said he would run again for the presidency, Reuters reported. High prices for oil, Russia's main export, boosted Putin's standing as the country emerged from the chaotic 1990s, raising incomes and purchasing power for millions of its citizens.
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Earlier this week, European negotiators sat in a conference room in Brussels and debated for nearly 24 straight hours — dozing off at times and working a self-service coffee machine so hard that it broke, Bloomberg News reported. They came with a singular mission: reaching an agreement to regulate artificial intelligence. And they didn’t quite get there. But the EU’s internal market chief, Thierry Breton, didn’t want a long break over the weekend that would give lobbyists more time to weigh in, according to people familiar with the matter.
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