The Federal Reserve’s decision Thursday to keep interest rates pinned near zero could put added pressure on the European Central Bank to step up its own stimulus efforts to keep the euro’s exchange rate from strengthening too much and derailing Europe’s fragile economic recovery, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Fed kept interest rates unchanged after a two-day meeting that concluded Thursday in one of the most hotly anticipated meetings in years. A recovering U.S. economy with falling unemployment had fanned expectations that the Fed would start slowing raising interest rates.

Ireland injected more capital into its banks than any other Euro zone country in terms of percentage of GDP, it experienced the highest increase of government debt as a result of its financial support to the banking sector, and it has one of the poorest recovery rates for this financial support, a report from the European Central Bank found on Wednesday, the Irish Times reported.

With new elections scheduled for Sunday and Greece’s relations with its European partners in a fragile state, this debt-ridden country has much on the line, the International New York Times reported. The next prime minister will have to navigate the tricky politics of the European Union at a time when some European leaders have made clear that their patience for keeping Greece in the eurozone is running out.

In the running debate over how to revive the Greek economy, there is one thing that locals and foreigners can agree on: The airport on this resort island, like many others in tourist-dependent Greece, does not befit a eurozone country, the International New York Times reported. The big, divisive question is whether the Greek government will be willing and able to hand over management of Corfu and many of the country’s other busiest airports to outside professional management, as part of Greece’s economic makeover.

U.K. inflation edged down to zero in August amid a renewed fall in fuel costs and subdued price rises on the high street, the Telegraph reported today. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that the drop in consumer prices inflation to zero from 0.1pc in the year to July was mainly driven by falling transport costs, as well as smaller increases in clothing and footwear prices than a year ago. This more than offset a slight rise in the cost of household goods and steadier food prices, which have been falling in recent months.

Nearly 150 leading economists today rebuked President François Hollande’s plan to appoint a former executive of France’s largest lender to head the country’s central bank by calling on legislators to block the appointment over concerns about conflicts of interest, the New York Times reported today. Hollande said last week that François Villeroy de Galhau, formerly co-chief operating officer at BNP Paribas, would head the Banque de France, succeeding Christian Noyer, who is to step down at the end of October.

European Union efforts to build a financial-transactions tax among 11 nations pressed on in a bid to break a deadlock over what to tax and at what rate, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday. “Important advances were made” at a meeting among participating nations on Saturday in Luxembourg, said French Finance Minister Michel Sapin. He said that France continues to push for a wide base and a low rate for the trading levies. Sapin said that ministers agreed to tax gross trades rather than net transactions, which would include high frequency trading.

Sweden’s central bank governor has warned that new crisis-busting tools policymakers are embracing around the world to counter asset bubbles and other financial dangers are susceptible to political inaction and turf wars, the Financial Times reported today. Stefan Ingves, governor of the Riksbank, said so-called macroprudential policies — such as capital requirements and leverage limits — had so far failed in Sweden where house prices and personal debt levels have soared to record levels.

The State’s bank guarantee from September 2008 was “too generous” and “magnified the fiscal impact of the banking crisis”, said the European Commission’s director general for economic and financial affairs, the Irish Times reported. “At the same time, it is clear that the decision was taken in a very difficult situation characterised by great risks and uncertainty,” Marco Buti told the banking inquiry.

The Ukrainian government has registered a package consisting of three draft laws required for the successful finishing the restructuring of the country' foreign commercial debt to the Ukrainian parliament and a draft resolution on the provision of financial stabilization as a part of the implementation of the Extended Fund Facility program (EFF) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Ukraine, according to a posting on the parliament's website, the Ukraine news agency Interfax reported.