Italy’s new budget plan has landed with a thud on desks in Brussels. The proposals mark a big change, of course, from the populist coalition in Rome, which has thrown out the previous administration’s commitment to reduce the budget deficit. Instead, prime minister Guiseppe Conte’s government, prodded by the election pledges of the Five Star Movement and the League, is to raise spending, saying this will stimulate growth, the Financial Times reported.

Germany’s finance ministry has presented plans for a European unemployment stabilisation fund designed to arm the eurozone against crises, in a response to French president Emmanuel Macron’s call for deep reform of the currency union, the Financial Times reported. The fund proposed by Olaf Scholz, the social democrat finance minister, would lend to recession-hit countries with high unemployment and strained social security systems. Recipients would repay the money once they had resolved their economic problems.

A court in Rome has accepted a filing by troubled Italian builder Astaldi for protection from creditors, the company said on Wednesday, confirming what sources had said. Astaldi, hit by delays to plans to sell a bridge in Turkey, filed for court protection from creditors in September to allow it to continue business while restructuring its debt, Reuters reported. “The court of Rome has admitted the company to the creditor protection procedure,” Astaldi said in a statement. The court has set Dec.

European political leaders need another financial crisis to frighten them into completing a banking union, a senior EU official said on Monday. He said key issues such as a euro zone deposit insurance scheme and finalising a multibillion-euro backstop to resolve failing lenders remain outstanding, The Irish Times reported.

A downgrade of Italy’s credit rating by Moody’s Investors Service looks like a done deal in the coming weeks, possibly as early as October, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move is so widely expected that analysts say it could spark a short-term relief rally in Italian government bonds, depending on the rating agency’s accompanying explanation. Even so, a downgrade would reflect increasing concern that Italy’s already elevated debt could rise even further. Moody’s has extended its review period on Italy to get clarity on the budget.

Finance professionals’ view of the German economy has darkened much more than expected amid domestic political instability and as tensions over the trade dispute with the US and concern over Brexit intensify, the Financial Times reported. The Indicator of Economic Sentiment for Germany dropped 14 points in October from September to minus 24.7, according to the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW). Economists had expected the index to drop to minus 12. The index has reached the same low-point registered in July of this year, which was the lowest reading since August 2012.

Big companies that regularly pay suppliers late should be stripped of government contracts, the body that represents small businesses has said. The Federation of Small Businesses is seeking to use a UK government consultation on how to solve the late payment crisis to add “teeth” to the regulatory regime. It said late payment caused 50,000 company failures a year, and the annual economic cost was £2.4bn, a figure accepted by government, the Financial Times reported. Estimates of how much businesses are owed range between £14bn and £50bn.

Forget slap-downs from European officials and the soaring risk premium to Berlin, this is what should keep populists in Rome awake at night: Bond yields have already jumped to the point where Italy’s $2.7 trillion debt load will expand faster than the economy is projected to grow, Bloomberg News reported. The nation’s weighted-average yield needs to drop to about 2.63 percent from 3.21 percent for it to exit the danger zone, Richard McGuire, head of rates strategy at Rabobank, told asset managers in meetings in Madrid last week.

Bond markets are signaling that German retailer Douglas Gmbh, which grew over two centuries from a small perfumery and soap maker in Hamburg into one of the largest beauty chains in Europe, may have expanded too far, Bloomberg News reported. Investors are concerned the private company will struggle to repay 2.1 billion euros ($2.4 billion) of debt used to fund its buyout and purchase of brick-and-mortar chains as the rise of online competition pressures retailers from Toys “R” Us Inc. to Sears Holdings Corp. to close shops or restructure debt.

The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy threw the United States into an epoch-defining financial storm. Imagine 300 of them going bust at once. That, in relative terms, is what Iceland endured a decade ago during its banking crisis, which on this rugged island steeped in myths of gods and giants is now known as "hrunid" — the collapse.