British retail supplier Palmer & Harvey McLane Ltd has been placed in administration after running out of cash, with the immediate loss of some 2,500 jobs, accounting firm PwC said, Reuters reported. The group, which delivers cigarettes, food and drinks to retail chains and convenience stores, has been hit by challenging trading conditions in recent months and efforts to restructure it have been unsuccessful, PwC said on Tuesday.

British Airways owner IAG has acquired valuable take-off and landing slots at London’s Gatwick airport from failed carrier Monarch Airlines, the latter’s administrators said on Monday, beating off competition from other airlines. The administrators said they were in the process of completing an exchange of Monarch’s slots for others currently held by IAG but did not disclose how much IAG was paying under the swap arrangement to get the more valuable slot times, Reuters reported.

The European Central Bank does not have the mandate for its plan to ask euro area banks to set aside more cash to cover bad loans, the European Union Council said in a legal opinion, in a further blow to the ECB proposal, Reuters reported. To prevent a pile-up of new bad debt on top of an existing stock of sour loans worth nearly 850 billion euros ($1 trillion), the ECB wants to introduce new guidelines including a two-year deadline for lenders to raise provisions from January for any newly classified non-performing unsecured debt.

The founding family behind German drugstore chain Schlecker, whose 2,800 stores closed in 2012, were sentenced over the company’s collapse by a German court on Monday, Reuters reported. The founder, 73-year-old former billionaire Anton Schlecker, received a suspended prison term of two years and a 54,000 euro ($64,487) fine for intentional bankruptcy, a milder sentence than the prosecution had demanded.

Travel firm Thomas Cook has bid for failed rival Monarch Airlines’ landing and take-off slots at London Gatwick airport, two sources close to discussions said, after Monarch’s administrator secured rights to sell the slots, Reuters reported. Earlier this week the administrator won an appeal against a previous London High Court court ruling that Monarch had lost any rights over the potentially valuable slots since it was no longer capable of operating any flights.

Before talking about Germany’s role in Europe we must first determine the pillars on which a strong and lasting leadership is built. Economic strength is essential, but alone it is not enough for a state to extend its sphere of influence, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. Germany may be Europe’s economic engine, but the country lacks both hard and soft power, the cornerstones of true leadership. The 20th century would not have been the American Century if the US hadn’t increased its military presence and exported its way of life worldwide.

The planned move of the European Banking Authority’s headquarters from London to Paris will reduce the UK’s influence over the rules governing European finance, experts said on Tuesday. EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday voted for the EBA to shift its headquarters from London to Paris after Brexit, the Financial Times reported. The EBA is responsible for writing standards that EU banks should abide by — how to calculate potential losses on risky loans, for example — as well as carrying out stress tests on them to safeguard the financial system.

The Greek government on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious draft budget for next year, the latest sign the country is making progress in its economic recovery after years of painful austerity and international bailouts, the International New York Times reported. The government projected that the economy will grow 2.5 percent next year, after a 1.6 percent anticipated increase this year, a further sign of Greece’s confidence as it looks to wean itself off the financial assistance it has relied on for the last eight years.

Soured loans sitting on the books of euro zone banks are holding back growth and creating a systemic risk, so a resolution is urgent, European Central Bank Governing Council member Bostjan Jazbec told a conference in Vienna on Monday, Reuters reported. “I think that there is an urgent need to clean up the banking system of all the NPLs (non-performing loans) that are still in the system,” Jazbec said.

Embattled billionaire Patrick Drahi sought to shore up the plunging stock price at Altice NV, the phone and cable company weighed down by $50 billion in debt, assuring investors he won’t sell new shares to raise cash, Bloomberg News reported. “Altice confirms that it is not in preparation of a cash raising by means of an equity or equity-linked issuance and has no intention to pursue such action within the group including Altice USA,” the Amsterdam-based company said in a statement published at 12:30 a.m. Monday.