The UK “now faces another extended period of weak growth”, according to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC). The business group has downgraded its 2018 growth GDP forecasts from 1.4% to 1.3%, which would be the worst performance since 2009 when the global economy was dealing with the credit crunch, Economia reported. It has also dropped its 2019 outlook form from 1.5% to 1.4%. The BCC cites uncertainties around Brexit, possible trade wars and rising oil prices and interest rates as factors set to drag on the economy.

In March 2011, just as Britain’s new coalition government was preparing to dramatically cut back on public spending, Carillion paid £306m to buy a company that helped consumers to take advantage of government-funded energy schemes, the Financial Times reported. Even by the now bankrupt outsourcing group’s somewhat indifferent standards, it would be a spectacularly mistimed move.

Jeff Mueller has little time for many of the junk bonds investment banks are pitching to him these days. The Eaton Vance portfolio manager is so unimpressed by what he sees, he now turns away most of the new issues he’s offered, Bloomberg News reported. That’s a reality check for borrowers who have used a six-year bull run in Europe’s $400 billion high-yield bond market to slash pricing and water down investor protections known as covenants. Since March, seven companies have withdrawn new deals after investors balked at the pricing and terms they asked for.

On Aug. 20, Greece is due to graduate from its third international rescue program. The country is still saddled with a towering public debt — nearly 180 percent of national income — and Europe’s other governments are divided over how much more relief to grant, Bloomberg News reported. Without a sizable package of new concessions, Greece’s debt burden is unlikely to stabilize. Creditors are seeking assurances that the country won’t go back to the spending that brought the economy to the brink of collapse in 2009.

Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union at 11 p.m. London time on March 29. But Brexit, in the sense of the full extrication of the U.K. from the bloc’s economic orbit, looks more and more likely to take many years, The Wall Street Journal reported. A transition period has already been established in principle with Brussels that would, so long as there is an overall divorce agreement, keep the U.K. in the EU’s customs union and its single market until December 2020. That combination should keep two-way trade flowing as freely as it is now.

On Thursday, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras, the once-Marxist firebrand-turned faithful-implementer of austerity, declared that a parliamentary vote on another slew of economic reforms was nothing less than “historic”. Passed by a narrow majority – 154 votes secured in the 300-seat Hellenic Parliament – the measures allow for the release of €12 billion of new loans from the country’s third bailout programme since 2010, the Irish Times reported.

France’s finance minister has hailed substantial progress in Franco-German talks over a budget for the eurozone, signalling that an accord could be reached at a meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel this week, the Financial Times reported. But any deal between the French president and the German chancellor will fall short of Mr Macron’s initial integrationist ambition in terms of size and governance. After one last round of talks over a Franco-German road map for eurozone reforms, Bruno Le Maire, French finance minister, tweeted at the weekend that a “deal is now

The European Central Bank could relaunch its bond-buying program again in future if the region’s economy was hit by an economic downturn, Belgian Central Bank governor Jan Smets said on Friday. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Smets said the ECB was confident that growth was broad and resilient enough that price pressures will lift inflation to the bank’s target. That allowed the bank to announce on Thursday that it will gradually end its bond-buying program by year’s end, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Greece will need a "credible package" of measures to help deal with its oversize debt as it leaves its eight-year international bailout program in August, the European Commission's vice president said Friday. Helping Greece manage its debt, which stands at just under 180 percent of gross domestic product, is one of the crucial elements of an agreement on the country's bailout exit, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. Greece hopes to hammer out the deal with creditors at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on June 21.

Steinhoff International Holding NV agreed to sell its Austrian furniture retailer Rudolf Leiner GmbH and real estate assets to billionaire Rene Benko’s Signa Holding GmbH to prevent a looming insolvency of the unit, Bloomberg News reported. The conditional offer could plug a cash-draining hole for Steinhoff, which has been trying to restructure the unprofitable Austrian business also known as Kika/Leiner amid fierce competition from bigger rival XXXLutz and Sweden’s Ikea. Kika/Leiner’s fate has hung in the balance since credit insurers withdrew guarantees for its suppliers earlier this month.