President Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that the U.S. and its allies would meet a military escalation into Ukraine with a series of actions, including strong economic measures, bolstering Ukrainian defenses and fortifying support for Eastern European nations, as allies work together to prevent renewed conflict in Eastern Europe, the Wall Street Journal reported. For more than two hours on Tuesday, the leaders held a secure video call to address what the U.S. has described as large and unusual troop movement near Russia’s border with Ukraine in recent weeks. The U.S.

Iceland is confronting the trouble that comes with having a pension system so successful in amassing savings for future retirees that it was recently rated the best in the world, Bloomberg News reported. With assets now at about double the size of the north Atlantic island’s economy, the government is considering allowing investment managers to diversify by buying up more securities abroad, prompting the central bank to urge caution. The rules currently limit the share of overseas holdings in pension assets at 50%.

Eurozone governments should continue to spend to support the COVID-19 economic recovery, though in an increasingly focused way, and consolidate public finances only when it is firmly under way, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday, Reuters reported. In a regular report on the euro zone economy presented to the group's finance ministers, the IMF noted, however, that while consolidation itself could wait, a credible way of how it would be done in the future should be announced already now.

U.K. households, already bracing for their energy bills to rise by “several hundred pounds,” will see a further jump following the collapse of Bulb Energy Ltd. and other suppliers, the regulator said, Bloomberg News reported. The U.K.’s energy crisis has led to the collapse of more than 24 suppliers and the first forced nationalization since 2008. That will cost the average household an extra 85 pounds ($112) next year. Ofgem said the collapse of Bulb Energy Ltd.

The U.K.’s biggest business lobby cut its forecasts for growth this year and next as it warned rising costs and shortages are hampering the nation’s recovery, Bloomberg News reported. The Confederation of British Industry said Monday it now expects an expansion of 6.9% in 2021 and 5.1% in 2022, down from 8.2% and 6.1% previously. It expects U.K. business investment to lag behind other advanced economies, and sees it remaining 3% below its pre-Covid level by the end of 2023. The emergence of the omicron variant poses a further downside risk, it said.

The U.K. Treasury has appointed David Miles, a former Morgan Stanley economist and Bank of England rate-setter, to the government’s independent budget watchdog, Bloomberg News reported. Miles, who served on the BOE’s monetary policy committee from 2009 to 2015, will take over from Charles Bean, whose five-year term ends on Jan. 1. The OBR draws up the economic forecasts as well as borrowing and debt projections for the budget. The independent body was set up in 2010 to stop the Treasury fiddling the figures for political purpose.

Dutch energy company Anode Energy plans to file for bankruptcy, the company said on Wednesday, the third in the Netherlands this year to become insolvent due to high energy prices, Reuters reported. Director Eric van Teeffelen said that the company, which supplies around 14,000 retail customers, had been forced to make the decision after its energy supplier could no longer meet its obligations. "We were forced to purchase on the spot market -- hedged prices are no longer available -- and the current prices are much higher, we can't endure it," he said.

Hungary delivered its fourth interest-rate increase in a month to nurture a nascent recovery in the forint, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank in Budapest raised the one-week deposit rate by 20 basis points to 3.10% on Thursday. Economists in a Bloomberg survey were evenly split in predicting a 10 or 20 basis point increase. The central bank is doubling down on monetary tightening after its inflation-fighting credibility was dented this fall, when it prematurely slowed the pace of rate hikes as peers in the Czech Republic and Poland accelerated theirs and prices continued to surge.

Euro zone producer prices jumped more than expected in October, data showed on Thursday, driven mainly by a surge in energy prices, while unemployment eased again as the economy continued to recover from the pandemic-induced recession, Reuters reported. The European Union's statistics office Eurostat said prices at factory gates in the 19 countries sharing the euro rose 5.4% month-on-month for a 21.9% year-on-year surge. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 3.5% monthly rise and a 19.0% annual gain.

Italy's Treasury is discussing with European Union authorities the possibility of extending by more than two years a 2021 deadline to cut Rome's 64% stake in ailing bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), Reuters reported. Under the terms of a 5.4 billion euro ($6.12 billion) state bailout agreed with Brussels in 2017, Italy was supposed to have a deal in place by the end of this year to re-privatise MPS, but this has not proved possible. Talks to sell the Tuscan lender to the country's No.2 bank UniCredit collapsed in October, leaving the Treasury chasing alternative options.