Britain’s aviation authority said it would take action to force Ryanair to pay compensation to customers affected by strikes held by its staff this summer, The Irish Times reported. The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement on Wednesday that the strikes were not exempt from EU rules on compensation and it had started enforcement action against the airline. Ryanair has suffered a number of strikes this year by cabin crew and pilots, forcing it to cancel hundreds of flights, after the airline recognised unions for the first time in 2017.

Italy’s prime minister has signalled he would be willing to modify his government’s budget plan in response to criticism from Brussels but only if the expensive welfare policies it contains remain intact, the Financial Times reported. Giuseppe Conte said minor amendments could be made to Rome’s populist coalition government’s budget to avoid Italy being sanctioned by the European Commission. “Right now if I am able to recover some funds, tweak the final figure, change a few things it doesn’t mean that I am backtracking,” Mr Conte said in an interview with La Repubblica newspaper.

The euro area is showing no signs of a meaningful economic rebound, with Italy on the verge of recession after the populist government picked a fight with European authorities over spending plans. Momentum in the 19-nation region is at the weakest level in more than two years, and trade and political uncertainty are dragging confidence lower, Bloomberg News reported. Activity last month was weighed down by Italy, where the risks of a second quarterly contraction are rising.

EU finance ministers have agreed on steps to bolster the eurozone against future financial crises, striking a deal after negotiations that went through the night and pitted French-led reform ambitions against the reluctance of northern European capitals to share more financial risk, the Financial Times reported.

Ireland’s richest man has been forced in the face of an investor backlash to sweeten the terms of a plan to postpone repaying $3bn in debt at his Caribbean telecoms company. Denis O’Brien is seeking more time for Digicel to repay debt amid anxiety about a possible default on a $2bn bond due in 2020, the Financial Times reported. This debt, and another $1bn bond due in 2022, are at the centre of long-running talks between Mr O’Brien and his investors.

Investors are fleeing from Thomas Cook’s debt as well as its shares, amid growing concerns about the company’s debt burden as it battles deep changes in its industry, the Financial Times reported. The cost to hedge against the possible default by tour operator Thomas Cook has almost doubled in the space of a week, while the yield on its 2022 bonds jumped more than 650 bps during Tuesday morning’s trading session in London according to data from Refinitiv.

Less than a decade after the financial crisis nearly tore the euro area apart, a long-anticipated push to shore up the single currency finally started taking shape at a meeting of the bloc’s finance ministers, though it will likely underwhelm those calling for tighter integration, Bloomberg News reported. The compromise struck around 8 a.m. Tuesday after almost 16 hours of talks in Brussels paves the way for advances in areas from debt sustainability to a possible euro-zone budget.

Italian government bond yields have fallen to their lowest level since the end of September, in the wake of media reports that Rome was seeking a compromise with Brussels over its controversial deficit-boosting budget, the Financial Times reported. The yield on 10-year Italian government debt fell 10 basis points from Friday’s close to 3.11 per cent, taking its spread over the equivalent German Bund to 280 bps, its narrowest since early October. Italian finance minister Giovanni Tria met European Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis in Brussels on Monday.

The completion of Greece’s financial rescue programme this summer marked the end of the eurozone crisis. At least those were the hopes of European policymakers. Reality, however, is less forgiving, the Financial Times reported. The confrontation between Italy and the European Commission over fiscal rules has shown that the eurozone remains vulnerable to bond market breakdowns.

The digital estate agency Emoov has entered administration, six months after a merger with two rivals that it had said made it the UK’s second-largest online agency, the Financial Times reported. Russell Quirk, chief executive, told the Financial Times the eight-year-old company had “voluntarily applied for administration, albeit [with] lots of potential buyers hovering”.