The Hilton hotel in Athens makes the perfect backdrop for high-intensity talks. Its ambience is subdued, its corridors hushed, its meeting rooms an oasis of tranquility, The Guardian reported. When Greece, in one of its many stand-offs with the international creditors keeping it afloat, finally won the right to conduct negotiations outside the confines of government offices, it seemed only natural that they should be held at the hotel. However, in recent weeks the talks have assumed an increasingly nervous edge.

UBI Banca is preparing to issue the year's first Tier 2 bond in euros from an Italian bank, a crucial test of appetite for subordinated debt from one of the country's smaller lenders as the government tries clean up its troubled banking sector. Giorgio Erasmi, head of funding, and Laura Ferraris, head of investor relations, will meet investors in Milan, London and Paris from Thursday 21 April to Tuesday 26 April.

Motor insurers are growing increasingly concerned at the lack of Government action to tackle pressure on premiums due to the €90 million collapse of Setanta Insurance two years ago, the Irish Times reported. Major insurance firms are now pressing for urgent steps to settle serious legal questions over their liability for any future failures after two court rulings found the industry-funded Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) should bear the cost of 1,750 outstanding claims by and against Setanta clients.

In a victory for Moscow, a Dutch court on Wednesday overturned an order that Russia pay $50 billion to shareholders in defunct oil company Yukos, saying that the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration had no jurisdiction, the Irish Times reported. Former Yukos shareholders said they would appeal the surprise decision, which could impact earlier rulings in Belgium and France that four former shareholders were entitled to seize Russian state assets to compensate them for the loss of the oil giant.

Greece’s government aims to use better-than-expected budget data for 2015, due for release Thursday, to argue against extra austerity measures that its creditors want, as the likelihood of another summer drama over Greek debt increases, The Wall Street Journal reported. Senior Greek officials say that fiscal data from the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat will show that Greece had a primary budget surplus (before interest) of about 0.6% to 0.7% of gross domestic product in 2015.

An Italian decree to speed up recovery of bad loans and compensate people who lost their savings in a bank rescue will not be discussed at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, two sources said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Wednesday's meeting had been expected to yield an emergency decree containing both measures, but a government source and a banking source said it would not be on the agenda. The cabinet will probably discuss and approve the decree next week, one of the sources said.

How might future historians judge a British decision to leave the EU in the referendum on June 23? It might well be seen as the moment when the west started to unravel, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. That is why Barack Obama, US president, is not merely entitled to present his views on “Brexit”. As leader of the west, he must do so. The choice the UK faces in June is whether to exercise its option to leave the EU now. So long as it is a member, it will always have this option. But it will not be granted the choice to rejoin after it has left.

Spain will overshoot its deficit target again this year, the caretaker government said Tuesday, as the country struggles to adhere to budget agreements reached with European Union authorities, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spain is projected to report a 2016 budget deficit of 3.6% of gross domestic product, caretaker Finance Minister Luis de Guindos told lawmakers on Tuesday in Madrid. The European Union’s executive arm had set a target for this year of below 3%. In 2017, Spain is expected to have a budget gap of 2.9%, Mr. De Guindos said.

The British government outlined the central argument on Monday it hopes will persuade voters to stay in the European Union, publishing a detailed economic analysis finding that Britons will be poorer if they quit, the International New York Times reported. The release of the publication by the Treasury, complete with complex algebraic calculations, is an important moment before a referendum, to take place June 23, on whether Britain should end more than four decades of integration and quit the 28-nation bloc.

Greece’s creditors have agreed to press the country for additional austerity measures if it falls short of budget targets, a move that papers over disagreements between the lenders but could test the stability of Greece’s fragile government, The Wall Street Journal reported. European Union institutions and the International Monetary Fund are set to resume talks in Athens on Tuesday and Wednesday after reaching a deal among themselves in Washington at the weekend.