A quarter of a century ago, Italy was in a sea of troubles that invites a comparison with today’s storms, the Financial Times reported. The party political system was disintegrating. A gigantic corruption scandal pervaded the highest levels of public life. Rapidly increasing government debt was crushing the economy. Citizens despaired of the state’s ability to uphold law and order.

Banks in London that relocate operations to the euro zone after Brexit are likely to be spared a lengthy entry test by regulators, making it easier for them to shift, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. The European Central Bank, the euro zone's banking supervisor, has had many inquiries from British-based banks wanting to come under its watch, prompting it to look at fast-tracking licence applications, according to the sources.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the eurozone’s finance ministers, has come under attack after refusing to apologise for saying southern European countries had wasted money on “drinks and women” in the run upto the continent’s debt crisis, the Financial Times reported. At a parliamentary hearing in Brussels on Tuesday, the Dutch policy chief – whose Labour party suffered a punishing defeat in national elections last week – was dubbed “insulting” and “vulgar” by MEPs for remarks made in an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Finance ministers from the euro currency discussed the impasse in Greece’s talks with creditors on Monday, but no breakthrough emerged on the latest conflict that threatens to derail Greece’s bailout deal: workers’ rights. The International Monetary Fund is insisting on further deregulation of Greece’s labor market, and rejects any reversal of earlier labor reforms, as a condition of rejoining the troubled Greek bailout program as a lender, The Wall Street Journal reported.

German central bank President Jens Weidmann suggested on Monday that the European Central Bank should slowly start to retreat from its easy-money policies, indicating divisions within the ECB over the timing of an exit, The Wall Street Journal reported. The comments come amid renewed criticism of the ECB in Germany, Europe’s largest economy. A recent jump in eurozone inflation, to 2% last month, has prompted calls from top German politicians and economists for a policy reversal from Frankfurt.

Foreign investors were net sellers of eurozone bonds over 2016 for the first time since the introduction of the single currency, as the European Central Bank continues to purchase the continent’s debt and keep yields low, the Financial Times reported. Overseas bondholders reduced their net holdings of eurozone debt securities by €192bn in 2016, reversing an increase of €30bn the year before, according to data from the ECB. Sovereign bonds comprised the bulk of the sales at €116bn as benchmark yields registered their lows during the summer.

When the European Commission published a “white paper” this month on the future of Europe, something was missing. Two weeks earlier Pierre Moscovici, EU economy commissioner, had told an audience in Athens that the blueprint would include “ambitious ideas” for “deepening of the economic and monetary union” — code for overhauling the system of budget rules and policy co-ordination that underpins the single currency, the Financial Times reported.

Italy has abolished voucher payments for workers, which were highly popular with employers, to avoid a bruising referendum championed by the country's main union, Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Friday. Payment by vouchers was introduced in 2008 as an experiment for seasonal farm labourers. The flexible and unregulated form of payment was aimed at encouraging bosses to stop hiring workers on an illegal, ad hoc basis, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

The eurozone’s construction sector suffered its biggest monthly contraction since 2013 in January – the second consecutive month of declines, the Financial Times reported. Output dropped by 2.3 per cent in January from December, and it was 6.2 per cent lower compared to January 2016, according to figures from Eurostat. The biggest monthly drops were recorded in Slovenia (-12.3 per cent), Belgium (-4.6 per cent) and Spain (-3.8 per cent) and could dampen expectations of a strong start to growth in the single currency area in the first quarter of 2017.

There could be a light at the end of the tunnel for European lenders waiting to issue billions in loss-absorbing debt as rulemakers ramp up the pressure to accelerate the requisite legislation. The European Commission endorsed a new form of senior unsecured debt in November 2016 in an attempt to harmonise the increasingly fragmented European bank debt market, the result of diverging national approaches to meeting post-crisis regulation, Reuters reported.