Brussels is unlikely to back down on its demand that Poland respect the rule of law to receive post-pandemic recovery funds, officials said, despite threats from Warsaw that it could block decision-making within the European Union, Reuters reported. Poland would be eligible for 24 billion euros in grants and 11.5 billion in very cheap loans from the fund, designed to help member states become greener and more digitalised as their economies recover.

The UK is planning for several days over the winter when cold weather may combine with gas shortages, leading to organized blackouts for industry and even households, Bloomberg News reported. Under the government’s latest “reasonable worst-case scenario,” Britain could face an electricity capacity shortfall totaling about a sixth of peak demand, even after emergency coal plants have been fired up, according to people familiar with the government’s planning.

Ukraine has formally requested new assistance from the International Monetary Fund, seeking funds to help weather a severe wartime recession and a large cash shortfall, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The government submitted a proposal for an IMF program on Friday, it said. Ukraine added that it expects to receive help by November or December but didn’t say how much it is requesting.

Germany's economy will lose more than 260 billion euros ($265 billion) in added value by 2030 due to the Ukraine war and high energy prices, spelling negative effects for the labour market, according to a study by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Reuters reported. In comparison with expectations for a peaceful Europe, Germany's price-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) will be 1.7% lower next year and there will be about 240,000 fewer people in employment, said the study published on Tuesday.

The Bank of England will probably have to raise interest rates further from their current 14 year-high to tackle inflation pressures that are gaining a foothold in Britain's economy, BoE Deputy Governor Dave Ramsden said, Reuters reported. Inflation's spread was now showing up in rising British pay and companies' pricing plans, having originally been triggered by the reopening of the world economy from COVID-19 lockdowns and then by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Ramsden told Reuters.

Several countries in Europe dependent on Russian energy suffered another with confirmation Tuesday that oil shipments have stopped through a critical pipeline, the Associated Press reported. Russian state pipeline operator Transneft said it halted shipments through the southern branch of the Druzhba oil pipeline, which flows through Ukraine to the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Transneft cited complications due to European Union sanctions for its action on Aug. 4, saying its payment to the company’s Ukrainian counterpart was refused.

A top arranger for Chinese junk dollar bonds says that a type of filing under the US bankruptcy code will play an important role for China’s distressed developers to restructure debt, buying them time to pay back creditors until markets recover, Bloomberg news reported. About 10 Chinese real estate companies could use so-called schemes of arrangement to restructure debt in a holistic fashion this year, Chen Yi, head of global capital markets at Haitong International Securities Group Ltd., said in an interview.

Ukraine's creditors vote this week on a government proposal to defer payments on the war-torn country's international bonds for 24 months as Kyiv hopes to swerve a $20 billion messy default, Reuters reported. Bondholders have until 5 p.m. New York time (2100 GMT) on Tuesday to decide whether to back or vote down the proposal by Ukraine's government, which faces a $5 billion monthly financing gap and liquidity pressures following Russia's invasion on Feb. 24. Time is precious: the country has a $1 billion bond maturing on Sept. 1.

The British government came under pressure on Monday to set out plans immediately to support families through a mounting cost of living crisis, with a leading business group and former prime minister saying a political vacuum cannot be allowed to last, Reuters reported. The Bank of England warned on Thursday a long recession was on its way as energy prices surge to unprecedented levels, pushing inflation to a 40-year high of 9.4% in June and leaving many households on the brink of economic hardship.

Brexit-related regulatory burdens impacted more than half of medium-sized businesses in the Republic in 2020, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the Irish Times reported. The agency’s latest Global Value Chain participation survey found that 54 per cent of businesses here with 50 or more employees were hit by new regulations arising from the UK’s EU exit. Despite the red tape, the UK remained the most popular location for Irish businesses for both global purchasing and supplying of goods/materials and services.