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”.

Euro-area finance ministers gather in Brussels on Monday for their final meeting on buttressing the currency bloc before passing the baton to their leaders, who are expected to strike a deal later this month, Bloomberg News reported. “I don’t think the European countries are living through a period of particularly excellent economic welfare otherwise we wouldn’t have had Brexit,” Italian Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini said during a Politico conference in Brussels. “The basics of the budget won’t change: the pension overhaul, the reforms of the work conditions,” Salvini said.

A struggling Conservative council in the Midlands has been handed an effective bailout after it was allowed to use proceeds from selling its headquarters for day-to-day spending, averting a financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. Ministers have given the green light to Northamptonshire county council to break the usual prohibition on councils using capital receipts for day-to-day purposes. The authority plans to use £70m of capital receipts, £60m of which comes from selling its new headquarters, to pay off a £35m deficit from last year and top up its reserves.