European Central Bank Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau said policy makers should take into account more favorable financing conditions in the region when they decide on the pace of emergency bond-buying next week, hinting a slowdown may be in the cards, Bloomberg News reported. Any changes in the program dubbed PEPP would not amount to tapering like that announced by U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday, according to Villeroy, who is also the governor of the Bank of France.

A labor union representing German train drivers said Monday that its members will launch a third strike this week in an escalating pay dispute with the country’s biggest rail company, the Associated Press reported. The GDL union said freight train drivers will walk out on Wednesday evening, followed by passenger train drivers early Thursday. The strike is due to last until 2 a.m. on Sept. 7, making it the longest in the current round of labor negotiations.

Fugitive Indian businessman Vijay Mallya has filed papers in the UK high court seeking permission to appeal against his bankruptcy order, the Times of India reported. Mallya was declared bankrupt by the insolvency and companies court (ICC) of the high court on July 26 this year. His name is now listed in the individual insolvency register. A spokesman for the chancery division of the high court told TOI that Mallya had on August 16 filed a notice seeking permission to appeal the decision of Chief ICC judge Briggs, who had declared him bankrupt.

Almost a quarter of firms that received funding from Microfinance Ireland (MFI) over the past decade have ceased trading, according to a spending review carried out by the Department of Public Expenditure, the Irish Times reported. MFI was established to deliver the Government’s Microenterprise Loan Fund. It works closely with Local Enterprise Offices to provide loans to small businesses. The Department of Public Expenditure published a series of spending reviews on Thursday, which included an analysis of the impact of Covid-19 on State supported lending.

If there isn't an immediate intervention, "the Metropolitan Government will become insolvent by the end of the year,” Budapest Deputy Mayor Ambrus Kiss said in a recent interview, HungaryToday.hu reported. The politician blames ever-increasing expenditures and the central government for the situation. In order to avoid insolvency, this year’s budget had to be modified in 65 points, Kiss revealed.

Supply constraints are pushing prices up more than the European Central Bank expected, even as the impact will likely be temporary, Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau said, Bloomberg News reported. “There are supply difficulties that will push inflation higher than we thought in the short term,” Villeroy told executives at the annual conference of business federation Medef.

Britain's accounting watchdog plans to strengthen "significantly" its audit firm governance code, it said on Thursday, after a number of issues around audits of UK firms in recent years, Reuters reported. The Financial Reporting Council's code applies to the Big Four accounting firms - Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC - and to other firms auditing FTSE 350 companies, the FRC said in a statement. In future it will also apply to firms which audit other types of public interest entities, the FRC said.

Sweden’s Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson, the frontrunner to replace the outgoing prime minister, said a robust economic recovery leaves room for an expansionary budget in the upcoming election year, Bloomberg News reported. The Harvard-educated Andersson could become the first woman leader in the largest Nordic economy that’s coped with the pandemic much better than most rich peers, helped by robust state finances. Yet she would face a fragmented political system where agreements on changes needed to keep the welfare state afloat are increasingly difficult.

The French government plans changes to its state-backed financing program for small firms that was designed to fuel investment after the worst of the Covid-19 crisis as it’s met with little success, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, Bloomberg News reported. The financial instruments, known as participative loans, were meant to ween small companies off a reliance on debt by offering a product that has some of the advantages of equity.

The euro is trading near its lowest level against the dollar in nine months as investors bet that the eurozone will maintain lower interest rates and have a slower economic recovery than the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. The European Central Bank has indicated that it intends to keep financial conditions loose for the foreseeable future as it cushions the eurozone’s economic recovery. In contrast, Federal Reserve officials have signaled they are on track to begin reversing their easy-money policies later this year.