U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to reduce the national debt and cut inflation as he set out his priorities for the coming year against a backdrop of mounting strikes, a creaking National Health Service and dire poll ratings for his ruling Conservative Party, Bloomberg News reported. The economic goals were among five priorities outlined by the prime minister in his first set piece remarks of the year. He also outlined promises to grow the economy, tackle immigration and improve health care provision.

Poland left borrowing costs unchanged as the threat of an economic recession overshadows concerns over the highest inflation in more than a quarter century, Bloomberg News reported. The country’s key interest rate was left on hold at 6.75% for the fourth consecutive month. Central bank Governor Adam Glapinski calmed an increasingly public dispute within the rate-setting Monetary Policy Council late last year as his warnings over excessive tightening dovetailed with signs that risks from inflation were subsiding as the peak neared.

France’s unions have pledged to dig in for a prolonged fight against French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to overhaul the country’s pension system, a new threat to his pro-business agenda, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Macron’s government is meeting with unions this week, putting an explosive issue back on the table as the country navigates the economic fallout of the war in Ukraine. The government said it would detail the proposed measures next week. Revamping the country’s pension system was one the main planks of Mr.

Cineworld, the British cinema operator in bankruptcy proceedings, said today that it would not sell any of its assets individually, and that it had not held discussions with AMC Entertainment about the sale of any of its theaters, Reuters reported. The British company said it would focus on selling the group as a whole rather than disposing of individual assets, along with its restructuring efforts, and was expecting to start reaching out to potential parties for a sale later this month.

High energy prices and high inflation are hitting Sweden's businesses hard. With energy price subsidies for these consumers delayed, the government is now extending existing tax deferral schemes implemented during the pandemic to ease the pressure. Swedish Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson and Energy and Business Minister Ebba Busch announced the scheme on Dec. 29. “Many, many companies are now struggling with their liquidity,” Svantesson said.

German inflation slowed more than anticipated in December after the government paid some households’ gas bills for the month, offering a temporary respite in the country’s cost-of-living crisis, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer-price growth at 9.6% was the weakest since August. Economists anticipated 10.2%, according to the median of 20 forecasts. The decline to single digits in the main rate masks an increase in food costs across Germany at the end of 2022, aggravating a squeeze on the poorest families and stoking the risk of a wage-price spiral.

German unemployment fell in December, Labour Office figures showed on Tuesday, with the labour market overall being only moderately affected by the war in Ukraine last year, Reuters reported. The Federal Labour Office said the number of people out of work decreased by 13,000 in seasonally adjusted terms to 2.52 million. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected that figure to rise by 15,000. The seasonally adjusted jobless rate remained stable at 5.5%.

The number of people registering as jobless in Spain fell slightly in December from a month earlier, ending 2022 at a 15-year low, data from the Labour Ministry showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The number of jobless fell by 1.52%, or by 43,727 people, leaving 2.84 million people out of work. It is the lowest rate since 2007, when 2.2 million were out of work. "This data shows that labour protection measures are working," Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz said in a post on Twitter.

Spanish retail sales fell 0.6% in November from a year earlier on a seasonally and calendar-adjusted basis, after rising 1.0% in October, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said on Thursday, Reuters reported. As shoppers grapple with the rising cost of living exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, food sales in Spain recorded an annual decrease of 3.6% in November, INE said. Meanwhile, sales of other goods grew 0.5% year-on-year.

The Russian rouble pared losses to gain on Thursday after slumping to an eight-month low against the dollar in early trade, struggling under the weight of expectations that sanctions on Russian oil and gas may limit export revenues, Reuters reported. Despite recovering ground in another volatile session, the rouble has still lost more than 13% to the dollar since a Western price cap on Russian oil exports came into force on Dec. 5. By 0957 GMT, the rouble was 0.8% stronger against the dollar at 71.64 , having earlier touched 72.9175, its weakest since April 27.