French finance minister Bruno Le Maire has challenged the wealthier economies of northern Europe to increase budget spending to revive eurozone growth and cut the risks of another financial crisis, an ambitious proposal likely to raise hackles in Berlin and The Hague, the Financial Times reported. “There are many countries in the eurozone that have the means to invest more,” Mr Le Maire told the Financial Times in an interview in Paris.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi struck a downbeat tone, warning that the “persistence of uncertainties” was continuing to weigh on the eurozone economy, the Financial Times reported. “The risks surrounding the euro area growth outlook remain tilted to the downside, on account of the persistence of uncertainties related to geopolitical factors, the threat of protectionism and vulnerabilities in emerging markets,” Mr Draghi said on Wednesday, after the central bank had earlier kept its benchmark refinancing rate at zero.

BNP Paribas on Wednesday denied having sued Astaldi, adding that it was the Italian builder that had launched legal action against the French lender on March 13, Reuters reported. The bank said it and other lenders were sued by Astaldi over the payment of an international guarantee issued by BNP Paribas at the request of the Italian group in favour of National Bank of Canada. The legal move was “totally groundless”, BNP added. Earlier on Wednesday, Italian daily Il Messaggero reported that BNP had sued Astaldi over an alleged breach of a contract in Canada, complicating its rescue plan.

Mike Ashley should have been favourite to take over Debenhams. The pugnacious sportswear billionaire was already its biggest shareholder, while overlaps with other parts of his retail empire gave scope for cost savings, the Financial Times reported. But this week he could only fulminate from the sidelines as creditors of the UK department store group, which traces its history back 240 years, seized control.

Demand for loans among eurozone businesses was flat the beginning of 2019 despite record-low interest rates, increasing pressure on the European Central Bank to take further action to bolster the bloc’s economy, the Financial Times reported. Data from the ECB on Tuesday indicated the expansion in loan requests that began in mid-2015 had ended, with the percentage of banks reporting an increase in demand for loans to businesses in the previous quarter falling to 0 per cent.

Italy’s populist coalition government has formally conceded that economic growth will be sharply lower this year than it had previously forecast, underlining its struggle to reconcile plans for higher public spending with a stubbornly slow domestic economy, the Financial Times reported. Following a meeting of ministers on Tuesday, the Italian government approved an updated budget plan that forecasts gross domestic product will be 0.2 per cent in 2019, bringing its estimates closer in line with the expectations of the IMF and vast majority of private sector economists.

Debenhams Plc, the 241-year-old U.K. department-store chain that anchors many of the country’s troubled shopping streets, was taken over by lenders after rebuffing a last-minute offer from billionaire Mike Ashley. The retailer entered a form of U.K. insolvency proceedings, handing creditors control and prompting the tycoon to call for the reversal of a process he described as a “national scandal.” Stores employing about 26,000 people will continue to operate as normal, but shareholders’ stakes are now worthless, Bloomberg News reported.

An Italian government scheme to reimburse shareholders of failed lenders damages the credibility of European Union rules on bank rescues, a leading EU lawmaker said on Tuesday, urging Brussels to block the plan, Reuters reported. The government agreed a plan on Monday with investors’ associations to use taxpayers’ money to compensate the shareholders and bondholders of six small banks that went bust over the last four years.

A German court on Tuesday approved an application for insolvency from wind turbine manufacturer Senvion, although the company said it was also continuing to look at new funding options and various potential investors had shown interest, Reuters reported. The Hamburg-based company, which has more than a billion euros of debt, said it had applied for preliminary self-administration proceedings because refinancing discussions with lenders had not yet been successful. Shares in Senvion were down 40.5 percent at 1519 GMT, having fallen as much as 55 percent earlier in the day.

A new week opens in Europe with yet another warning sign over the health of the German economy, with new data showing imports and exports fell in February amid a fraught global trading environment, the Financial Times reported. Exports fell 1.3 per cent month on month to €108.8bn, according to the Federal Statistics Office, while imports dropped 1.6 per cent to €90.9bn. The declines were sharper than expected: a Reuters poll of economists had forecast falls of 0.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent.