Italy plans to approve on Thursday a new aid package worth around 14.3 billion euros ($14.5 billion) to help shield firms and families from surging energy costs and consumer prices, government officials said, Reuters reported. The scheme, one of the last major acts of outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi before a national election next month, comes on top of some 33 billion euros budgeted since January to soften the impact of sky-high electricity, gas and petrol costs.

The European Central Bank faces a toxic mix of surging inflation expectations, the prospect of a shrinking economy and a worsening labor market, according to the citizens it serves, Bloomberg News reported. That’s the thrust of a new monthly poll of euro-zone households, the Consumer Expectations Survey, which is intended to gauge on-the-ground views to support policy makers in their decision making. It highlights the challenge as they weigh how fast to raise interest rates.

Rising energy and fuel bills are driving growing numbers of UK companies into insolvency, as firms struggle to cope with higher costs, supply and staff shortages, and the withdrawal of Covid support packages from the government, the Guardian reported. Corporate insolvencies in England and Wales jumped by more than 80% in the past quarter from a year earlier, while the number of firms opting to be liquidated hit the highest level in at least six decades. They accounted for almost nine in 10 of the total.

The Italian parliament has given its final approval to a highly contested bill to promote competition in product and services markets, required to help secure a new tranche worth 19 billion euros ($19.4 billion) of post-pandemic European funds, Reuters reported. The reform championed by the outgoing government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi has triggered protests from lobby groups, especially taxi drivers who were against opening up their sector to broader competition including from multinationals.

Euro zone retail sales plunged in June and factory gate prices continued to rise, data showed on Wednesday, adding to fears the 19-country single currency zone is heading for recession, Reuters reported. The European Union's statistics office Eurostat said the volume of retail sales in the 19 countries sharing the euro, already adjusted for inflation, fell 1.2% month-on-month in June for a 3.7% year-on-year decline. Economists polled by Reuters had expected unchanged monthly sales and only a 1.7% annual fall.

The German government will have to amend its energy security law again in September as its gas levy cannot yet be imposed on all consumers, including those with fixed prices contracts, government and parliamentary sources told Reuters on Wednesday. A gas levy, which had been set to come into force from October, was envisaged as a tool to collect funds from all gas consumers to support ailing gas importers that are struggling with soaring prices due to falling Russian gas export flows.

European banks are hoping the boost to their businesses from higher interest rates will be long-lasting as they navigate the economic fallout of war, soaring inflation, and a looming energy crisis, Reuters reported. The German lender Commerzbank on Wednesday reported a bigger-than-expected second-quarter net profit that it said was especially helped by higher interest rates.

German retail sales fell at the largest annual rate since records began in 1994, highlighting the scale of the economic challenges facing the eurozone’s largest economy, the Financial Times reported. Retail sales volumes dropped 8.8 per cent in June compared with the same month last year, data from Destatis, the German office for national statistics, showed on Monday.

The Bank of England says it will act forcefully if needed to stop the surge in inflation from turning into a long-term problem, meaning it could deliver a rare half-percentage point interest rate rise as soon as this week, Reuters reported. Here are some of the things that Governor Andrew Bailey and his colleagues will be looking as they assess the persistence of inflation pressures ahead of their next scheduled monetary policy announcement at 1100 GMT on Thursday. Measures of inflation expectations and prices charged by companies have slowed recently but core pay has risen.

Russia's economic contraction will deepen in the third quarter of 2022, while its strong current account surplus, the key driver of the rouble's recent rebound, will shrink in the second half of this year, the central bank said on Monday, Reuters reported. Russia's export-dependent economy is plunging into recession after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, triggering sweeping financial and economic sanctions from the West.