Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s prime minister, slammed key features of a eurozone reform plan hatched last week by France and Germany, staking out a hardline position on economic policy as well as immigration ahead of his first EU summit as head of the populist government in Rome, the Financial Times reported. In a speech to parliament on Wednesday morning, Mr Conte said it was the “moment to advance risk sharing, which has been left too far behind”.

Europe’s junk-debt investors are gaining ground after years of borrowers chipping away at the safeguards enshrined in the small print of bond documents, Bloomberg News reported. As the balance of power shifts, around 32 percent of Europe’s high-yield bond issuers have altered terms to meet investors’ demands this year, almost double the rate in the last six months of 2017, according to preliminary findings from research firm Covenant Review. “Investors are getting a little leery,” said Glenn Zahn, a credit analyst at Commerzbank AG in London.

Shares in Europe’s largest banks have shed almost a fifth of their value in the past four months as hopes that economic growth will spur a recovery in financials crumble, the Financial Times reported. The Stoxx European Banks index has lost nearly 20 per cent of its value since the start of February as analysts and investors scale back assumptions for when higher growth will boost long-term interest rates in Europe, which are one of the most important drivers of bank profitability.

Novo Banco is facing a fresh challenge from a London hedge fund that says the bank has unwittingly defaulted on certain bonds, further complicating a crucial debt sale the Portuguese lender is looking to complete this week, the Financial Times reported. Novo Banco, the lender created out of the failure of Portugal’s Banco Espírito Santo (BES) in 2014, is already the subject of long-running litigation from international investors including BlackRock and Pimco, who lost money due to a controversial debt transfer at the end of 2015.

France’s finance minister has cautioned that a landmark Franco-German proposal for a eurozone budget was “non-negotiable” as he urged EU members to refrain from using the reform as a bargaining chip in the bloc’s mounting dispute over migration, the Financial Times reported. Speaking to the Financial Times days before EU leaders meet to review the Franco-German “road map” for the eurozone, Bruno Le Maire hit back at a faction of 12 member states that has sharply criticised the plans, accusing those governments of being “of bad-faith” or “contradictory”.

Eurogroup President Mario Centeno will seek a mandate to define the process of sovereign public debt restructuring, New Europe reported. His announcement came after the publication of a letter addressed to European Council President Donald Tusk ahead of the EU Summit on June 28-29. In making the announcement, Centeno proposed a restructuring process based on new issuance of single-limb Collective Action Clauses to prevent holdouts, Reuters reported. The two most indebted governments in the Eurozone are Greece, with a 178% debt to GDP ratio, followed by Italy with a 130% debt to GDP.

Struggling flooring retailer Carpetright has posted a £71m annual loss and warned that trading continues to be difficult, prompting further falls in its share price, the Financial Times reported. The company on Tuesday said that “adverse publicity” about its restructuring had affected both suppliers, which had responded by tightening the terms on which they would extend credit for purchases, and customers.

Vodafone's Ghana business plans to list on the local stock market after restructuring its loans, the head of the local unit told Reuters on Tuesday. Yolanda Zoleka Cuba said Vodafone was in talks with the West African country, which owns a 30 percent stake, to restructure its debt, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The world's largest mobile group by revenue paid $900 million for a 70 percent stake in state-run Ghana telecom in 2008 while the government retained the remaining 30 percent with an enterprise value of around $1.3 billion at the time.

The head of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers said on Monday that he would seek guidance from European Union leaders on Friday on measures to facilitate euro zone public debt restructuring, a possibility one economist dubbed a "bombshell,” the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The move is based on a joint proposal put forward last week by Germany and France, aimed at making it easier to restructure debt. The two most indebted governments in the euro zone are now Greece and Italy -- both above 130 percent of GDP.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde used her meeting today in Ireland with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to warn that although “the sun is shining on the Irish economy” it is time for the eurozone to “fix the roof" as the IMF prepares for a climbdown on growth forecasts, Express.co.uk reported. Mrs Lagarde, visiting Dublin to mark 20 years since the adoption of the euro currency, was eager to champion the manner by which Ireland came out of the EU-IMF bailout in December 2013 following the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis.