Greece’s parliament has approved a handful of extra reforms demanded by creditors in order to unlock more than €7bn of aid and complete a much delayed second review of the country’s €86bn current bailout programme, the Financial Times reported. While the leftwing Syriza government pushed a package of 120 fiscal and structural reforms through parliament last month, another 20 measures still had to be implemented either through legislation or administrative decrees. The five amendments voted on Friday included several measures delayed because of opposition from Syriza politicians.

France’s industrial sector unexpectedly contracted in April, after a particularly severe drop in manufacturing output, highlighting the challenges still facing new president Emmanuel Macron despite the recent economic pickup across the eurozone. Total industrial output fell 0.5 per cent over the month, in contrast to forecasts of a 0.2 per cent rise, the Financial Times reported. The surprise contraction brought the year on year growth figure down to 0.6 per cent, from 2.5 per cent the previous month.

The German government on Friday said it was evaluating Air Berlin's request for state loan guarantees with two regional governments, noting any support would be contingent upon a sustainable business model for the struggling airline, Reuters reported. The federal government stepped in a day after Air Berlin said it had made a request to the states of Berlin and North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) to consider loan guarantees. Most of loss-making Air Berlin's roughly 8,000 German staff are located in Berlin and NRW.

Ailing German airline Air Berlin said on Thursday it has asked the German states of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) and Berlin to consider possible loan guarantees amid signs of waning support from Etihad Airways, its biggest shareholder. Abu Dhabi-owned Etihad, which has thrown Air Berlin several life lines over the years, earlier on Thursday said it had pulled out of a prospective deal to combine Air Berlin's holiday flight business Niki with tour operator TUI Group's own carrier TUIfly, Reuters reported.

Three recent bank rescues in Europe could form the backbone of a textbook on how to deal with large, failing banks -- and how not to. These are the uncompromising bail-in of Banco Popular in Spain, the controversial rescue of Monte dei Paschi di Siena in Italy and the much-praised but in fact horribly botched nationalization of Ukraine's largest bank, Privatbank, a Bloomberg View reported. The Banco Popular purchase for 1 euro ($1.12) by Santander, Spain's biggest bank, is an example of how such operations should work.

International Bank of Azerbaijan, the energy exporting country's biggest lender, said on Wednesday a London court had supported its request to prevent creditors pursuing legal action in the United Kingdom, giving it time to restructure $3.3 billion (£2.5 billion) in debt, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. A similar decision was made by a U.S. court last month.

The regime to deal with failing European banks cleared its first major hurdle Wednesday as the market shrugged off the resolution of Banco Popular and the wipeout of its subordinated debt, Reuters reported. After watching the bank wobble on the edge of insolvency for months, regulators eased market jitters with a relatively swift winding up of the Spanish lender. The Single Resolution Board bailed in the sub debt, wrote down the shares and Additional Tier 1 instruments, converted the Tier 2 debt to new equity - and won wide praise for doing so.

Within the space of six days, Europe has taken crucial decisions on the future of two banks that embody Italy and Spain’s very different approaches to navigating a financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. On one hand there is Banco Popular, Spain’s sixth-largest lender, which was sold to Banco Santander in the early hours of Wednesday after a frantic night’s work by EU and Spanish regulators.

After a long period of uneven and fragile growth, the global economic recovery is finally beginning to look stable, and even strong. The eurozone, having apparently shrugged off the after-effects of the sovereign debt crisis, is now into a solid recovery, the Financial Times reported. The US, notwithstanding some recent weakness in gross domestic product growth, is robust enough that the Federal Reserve is planning to raise interest rates next week. Although China still has big problems with debt, its economy is chugging along fine for now.

A group led by ArcelorMittal has won the race to buy Ilva, the Italian owner of Europe’s biggest steel plant that was nationalised after an alleged environmental disaster, the Financial Times reported. Carlo Calenda, Italy’s economic development minister, signed a decree on Monday approving the €1.8bn offer, led by the world’s largest steelmaker, in a move that will deliver the century-old industrial concern back into private ownership.