Greece called on the International Monetary Fund on Saturday to explain whether it was seeking to usher Athens toward bankruptcy ahead of a pivotal referendum in June on Britain’s membership in Europe. Greece’s comments came after I.M.F. officials raised questions in a private discussion published by WikiLeaks about what it would take to get Greece’s creditors to agree to debt relief, the International New York Times reported.

Romanian state-owned power producer Hidroelectrica expects to finally exit its insolvency process by next month, and aims to sell a minority stake in an initial public offering by November, its manager told Reuters on Sunday. Romania's largest and cheapest power producer has been run by a court-appointed manager after it became insolvent for the second time in early 2014. It first became insolvent in 2012 after losing $1.4 billion over six years from contracts under which it sold the bulk of its output below market prices.

As British Prime Minister David Cameron scrambles to try to save the U.K.’s largest steel plant, an uncomfortable spotlight has focused on his government’s opposition to a move that the steel industry says would strengthen the European Union’s defenses against the cheap Chinese steel flooding European markets, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government already faces accusations by opposition politicians and unions that it has been slow to react to a crisis engulfing British steelmaking.

Small businesses whose bank loans were bundled into portfolios and sold to “vulture” funds have been advised to consider going into examinership to protect themselves should the funds call in their loans, the Irish Times reported. Hughes Blake accountants, which specialises in examinerships for small businesses, said seeking court protection from the funds could be a “valid tactical maneouvre”. It said many of the funds behave differently from each other so businesses should familiarise themselves with the approach of the fund that bought their loan.

Spain has veered sharply off course in its long-running effort to reduce the budget deficit, unveiling a 5.2 per cent shortfall in 2015 that is likely to raise alarm inside the European Commission and impose significant political constraints on the next Spanish government, the Financial Times reported. Cristóbal Montoro, the budget minister, said the funding gap stood at €55.8bn last year — significantly worse than predicted by either the Spanish government or the Commission.

Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain emerged from an emergency cabinet meeting on Thursday to say that the government would do all it could to preserve the British steel industry but that nationalization was not an option, the International New York Times reported. Emphasizing the severity of the situation, Mr.

Prime Minister David Cameron faced a new economic and political challenge on Wednesday after the Indian owner of much of Britain’s steel industry said it could no longer swallow the large losses being generated by its plants and would try to sell them, the International New York Times reported. The owner of the plants, Tata Steel, has been squeezed by cheap imports of Chinese steel into Europe, and its announcement suggested that if no buyer could be found it would consider closing them, endangering at least 15,000 jobs.

Fears that Britain might vote to leave the European Union helped keep consumer confidence at the lowest level in more than a year, according to a survey published Thursday, Bloomberg News reported. GfK’s consumer-confidence index stayed at zero in March. A gauge of expectations for the economic situation over the next 12 months was minus 12, unchanged on the month and down 18 points from a year earlier.

Fears that a cap on bankers’ bonuses would greatly inflate their fixed pay and damage financial stability have proved unfounded, according to a report from the European Banking Authority, the Financial Times reported. Critics of the EU bonus cap — including the Bank of England — have argued that it could erode the stability of the financial system by increasing banks’ fixed costs and reducing their ability to claw back bonuses if something goes wrong.

The Bank of England said on Tuesday that it would increase the size of a capital buffer it requires banks to hold to ensure they can provide lending and other essential banking services in times of financial stress, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Lenders in Britain would be required to set aside the equivalent of 0.5 percent of their assets as weighted by risk by March 29, 2017, the central bank’s Financial Policy Committee said on Tuesday.