The Government is set to proceed with reforms to the State’s personal insolvency regime to allow full access to court protections for those struggling debtors hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, The Irish Times reported. Currently someone applying for a personal insolvency arrangement can seek a court review if their mortgage lender refuses what they believe to be a reasonable insolvency proposal. However, in order to seek this review their mortgage arrears must date from before January 1st, 2015.

The economic impact of the coronavirus resurgence in parts of Europe was laid bare on Monday by data which showed that fresh restrictions to control the spread of the virus had begun to choke off the recovery in the hardest hit country, Spain, the Financial Times reported. The decline in Spanish business sentiment data increases the chances that the eurozone economy will suffer a fresh downturn in the final months of this year, after rebounding from a historic recession caused by the onset of the pandemic in the first half of 2020, economists warned.

Germany has an extra reason for cheer on Saturday when it celebrates 30 years as a united country: the vanished East German regime is picking up the tab, The Irish Times reported. After a long search – and lengthy court battle – Switzerland’s highest court has ordered Julius Bär bank to pay out 150 million francs (€140 million) that a subsidiary helped hide for East Germany’s ruling party in the dying days of the socialist state. It’s the latest tranche of money clawed back by German authorities in a 30-year game of financial hide-and-seek.

KLM, the Dutch arm of airline group Air France-KLM, will likely have to cut more jobs than the thousands of layoffs already announced due to the coronavirus pandemic, its chief executive Pieter Elbers said in a message to his staff, Reuters reported. Elbers warned that COVID-19 will limit flights more extensively than the 20-25% drop it had anticipated for next year. “We now expect even lower production, which ultimately means we need fewer people”, Elbers said in his message, seen by Reuters.

The eurozone’s pandemic-hit economy sank into its second consecutive month of deflation in September, intensifying pressure on the European Central Bank to consider injecting more monetary stimulus, the Financial Times reported.

The European Union is developing plans for markets to help banks offload a “resurgence” in coronavirus-hit loans and avoid choking economic recovery, the bloc’s choice for its financial services chief said on Friday, Reuters reported. Known as non-performing loans or NPLs, addressing soured debts is set to become more pressing as payment “holidays” introduced by banks on mortgage and business loans when economies went into lockdown are being phased out.

The COVID-19 pandemic could trigger a debt crisis in some countries, so investors must be ready for granting some form of relief that could also include debt cancellation, World Bank President David Malpass was quoted as saying on Sunday, Reuters reported. “It is evident that some countries are unable to repay the debt they have taken on. We must therefore also reduce the debt level. This can be called debt relief or cancellation,” Malpass told Handelsblatt business daily in an interview. “It is important that the amount of debt is reduced by restructuring,” Malpass added.

Shareholders in Monte dei Paschi di Siena approved on Sunday a long-awaited bad loan clean-up plan aimed at easing the sale of the state-owned bank to a healthier rival, Reuters reported. Italy has worked for two years on the plan, which gained final approval from the European Central Bank in September and must be completed by Dec. 1. Rome bailed out Monte dei Paschi in 2017, acquiring a 68% stake for 5.4 billion euros ($6.3 billion). To meet conditions agreed at the time with European Union competition authorities, it must cut that stake before the bank approves 2021 earnings.

The High Court has made orders formally winding up the operator of a south Dublin care facility, which caters for vulnerable adults, and a nursing home, The Irish Times reported. Mr Justice Michael Quinn made the order in respect of St Mary’s Centre (Telford), after being informed that no appeal is being brought against his decision not to appoint an examiner to the company. The company had operated both disability care facility for persons who are legally blind and a nursing home on a campus beside St Vincent’s Hospital on Merrion Road in Dublin.

The unemployment rate in the eurozone edged up to 8.1 percent in August from 8 percent in July, the European Union said Thursday, as government support cushioned much of the economic impact of the pandemic, the International New York Times reported. But economists fear that the jobless rate could surge when the programs expire, or employers go bankrupt or are forced to lay off workers permanently. Germany, France and many other countries compensate workers for some of the income they lose when their employers put them on furlough or reduced hours.