The European Central Bank (ECB) is very unlikely to raise interest rates next year as inflation remains too low, European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday, pushing back on market bets for a move as soon as next October, the Irish Times reported. “In our forward guidance on interest rates, we have clearly articulated the three conditions that need to be satisfied before rates will start to rise,” she told an event in Lisbon.

Poland’s central bank on Wednesday made its second interest rate hike in as many months as consumer prices surge, the Associated Press reported. The National Bank of Poland raised the rate to 1.25%, indicating that it intends to move more forcefully against rising prices after facing criticism for not acting soon enough. The move “suggests to us that it is taking the fight against inflation much more seriously than we had thought,” Capital Economics said in a note.

Euro zone unemployment eased to 7.4% of the workforce in September as expected, the EU's statistics office said on Wednesday, as the economy continues to recover from the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported. The statistics office said 12.079 million people were without jobs in the 19 countries sharing the euro in September, compared to 12.334 million, or 7.5% of the workforce, in August.

Inmarsat’s private equity owners are considering an exit from their investment in the U.K. satellite communications group, Bloomberg News reported. Apax Partners and Warburg Pincus have held early discussions about a possible sale of the business after receiving approaches from potential suitors, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. An exit from Inmarsat would mark a quick turnaround for its owners, which took the company private in 2019.

Germany’s future government plans to let the country’s pension system invest in the capital markets for the first time in what would be a small revolution in how Europe’s largest economy manages money for its growing ranks of retirees, Bloomberg News reported. Negotiators for the Social Democrats, Greens and the market-oriented Free Democrats are seeking to hammer out details that would allow the $400 billion pension system to start investing some of its reserves into stocks and bonds, which would bring it more in line with other advanced economies.

Euro zone manufacturing activity remained strong last month but was curtailed by supply chain bottlenecks and logistical problems which sent input costs soaring, a survey showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Ongoing disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, alongside a shortage of heavy goods vehicle drivers, has caused product shortages and left factories struggling to get the raw materials they need.

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has given a personal guarantee that, short of a crisis, debt will shrink as a share of the economy from 2024 onwards, Bloomberg News reported. In his budget last week, the finance minister set a rolling three-year target to bring down the pandemic-bloated debt burden. But he has faced criticism that the rule would never bite because it moved forward every year.

The U.K labor market may be “alarmingly tight” and could stoke wage pressures, Office for Budget Responsibility member Charlie Bean told lawmakers, Bloomberg News reported. In testimony to the House of Commons Treasury Committee, Bean said the Bank of England would have little choice but to raise interest rates if the end of the furlough scheme does not bring more workers into the jobs market. Bean is a former deputy governor and chief economist of the U.K. central bank. The BOE will release its verdict on the labor market on Thursday, when it announces its interest-rate decision.

A troubling post-Brexit fishing spat between Britain and France showed few signs of abating Monday, a day before a threatened French blockade of British boats and trucks, the Associated Press reported. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss warned France that the U.K. will “not roll over” in the face of what she termed “unreasonable” threats from Paris. French fishing crews stood their ground, demanding a political solution to a local dispute that has become the latest battleground between Britain and the European Union.

The Irish commercial property market has been “phenomenally busy” in the past two months, with the ability of investors and occupiers to travel to undertake property inspections having had a “transformative effect” on it, according to a new report, the Irish Times reported. Commercial property specialist CBRE today published their final bimonthly report for 2021 on Monday, which provides an overview of trends and transactions in all sectors of Ireland’s commercial property market as the year begins to draw to a close.