The outlook for the eurozone economy is darkening at just the wrong time for the European Central Bank, The Wall Street Journal reported. The world’s number two central bank is preparing to phase out its giant bond-buying program, four years after the Federal Reserve wound down its own quantitative easing program. But threats to the 19-nation currency union are mushrooming. They range from international trade conflicts to a recent economic slowdown to a new governing coalition in Italy that is putting investors on edge.

Italy's partners in the euro lined up in Brussels on Thursday to urge the new government in Rome to stick to EU budget rules or risk following Greece into financial calamity that would hurt the whole of Europe, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Arriving for a meeting of euro zone finance ministers, the hawkish Slovak representative went so far as to warn that Italy under its new eurosceptic, anti-austerity coalition risks casting itself adrift from the common currency in a manner that would do severe damage across the bloc.

Banca Popolare di Bari ScpA, an Italian regional lender weakened by bad loans, plans to raise as much as 350 million euros ($410 million) from investors this year to strengthen capital and complete the bank’s cleanup, people with knowledge of the matter said. The lender will seek at least 250 million euros of fresh funds, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private, Bloomberg News reported. The bank hasn’t decided on the method of the capital increase and may consider listing the company, two of the people said. A spokesman for the bank declined to comment. Pop.

In a related story, the Financial Times reported that investors last week withdrew the most money in nearly two years from western European funds, after the election in Italy of two populist parties raised concerns about the country’s commitment to the eurozone and its fiscal policies. Equity funds investing in the region suffered $2.6bn of outflows in the week that ended on May 24, and bond funds saw withdrawals of $1.8bn of investor cash, according to EPFR.

PwC halved the estimated costs of winding up British brokerage Beaufort Securities on Wednesday, potentially boosting funds for hard-pressed mining companies and other clients that are expected to shoulder the costs, Reuters reported. Beaufort, which specialised in helping to raise money for the junior mining sector, was declared insolvent in March after the U.S. Department of Justice alleged it had a role in a more than $50 million stock fraud and a laundering scheme involving a work by Pablo Picasso.

It didn’t take long for the world’s biggest bond investors to decide that Russia isn’t quite such a toxic trade after all, Bloomberg News reported. Less than two months after getting caught out with overweight positions as Russian debt was roiled by a fresh round of U.S. sanctions, some traders are finding their appetite again amid a quiet patch in tensions between Washington and the Kremlin. Russia has outperformed all peers this month and is one of only two countries to post a return in a Bloomberg Barclays index of emerging-market local-currency bonds.

Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s bonds have led heightened selling in Italian bank debt, as new policies mooted by the incoming populist government threaten to raise the cost of future funding for the sector, the Financial Times reported. The Italian government last year rescued the world’s oldest bank, which had to agree to a restructuring programme with EU authorities that included branch closures.

French fashion house Carven, which dressed cabaret queen Edith Piaf, is filing for bankruptcy protection, a spokesman for the company, which employs 100 people, said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Carven, founded in 1945 by Carmen de Tommaso, took the world of fashion by storm in the 1950s with pink chequer dresses, counting among its most illustrious clients Parisian singer Piaf. “Carven is in default on payments and will on Wednesday be asking to be placed under bankruptcy protection of the Paris commercial court via receivership procedures,” a Carven spokesman said.

Bulgaria’s hopes of becoming the next member of the eurozone have been dealt a blow by the European Central Bank which has warned the EU’s poorest country has made minimal progress in joining the euro club, the Financial Times reported. In its latest biennial “convergence report” assessing non-euro economies, the ECB raised concerns over Bulgaria’s central bank independence, inflation dynamics and urged for “wide-ranging structural reforms”. Bulgaria has been considered the most likely 20th member of the single currency area.

The former chairman of Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS), Michael Walsh, told an inquiry into the lender that an erroneous report in early September 2008 on the company’s financial position triggered a €1 billion run on its deposits, the Irish Times reported. He said a Reuters report on September 5th, 2008, that INBS was in “talks with its lenders to avoid insolvency”, which was subsequently retracted by the news agency, “was completely untrue, but the impact of that was to cause a run on the society” and added to general uncertainty in financial markets at the time.