As representatives of Greece’s international creditors started arriving on Wednesday in the Greek capital for a new round of tough negotiations, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the country would get relief from its huge debt burden as early as November. He also hit out at dissenters within his party, saying that securing a new bailout deal was a priority, the International New York Times reported. Amid growing opposition within his leftist Syriza party over the prospect of fresh austerity required under Greece’s third financial rescue in five years, Mr.

Major banks and brokers have failed to make sufficient internal changes following the Libor and foreign exchange rigging scandals, according to the City regulator, The Guardian reported. The Financial Conduct Authority also warned that more action was needed to restore trust in the financial markets after visiting 12 firms and brokers as a follow-up exercise to the fines imposed for rigging Libor, the benchmark exchange rate. The FCA found that none of them had made all the changes required to comply with guidelines for setting prices.

Poland is again trying to persuade power firms to take direct stakes in troubled coal company Kompania Weglowa as launching a fund to help the miner would take too long, Rzeczpospolita daily said on Wednesday. The Polish government is working hard to keep the European Union's biggest coal miner alive as its bankruptcy would leave thousands of potential voters without jobs ahead of a general election in October.

Bank Insolvency Act amendments aimed at allowing easier access of creditors to information related to the insolvency proceedings passed second reading in Parliament on Wednesday, the Sofia News Agency reported. Under the newly adopted provisions, the list of creditors who have submitted claims against a bank undergoing insolvency proceedings will be published in the Business Register. The amendments to the Bank Insolvency Act were backed by 91 MPs, with no votes against and two abstentions.

Bookmaker Ladbrokes is to retain 144 shops nationwide and continue to employ over 700 people in Ireland following the High Court’s approval of its rescue plan on Tuesday, the Irish Times reported. The UK bookmaker, which entered the examinership process in April in order to restructure the business, will now close 52 of its 196 outlets while about 90 people will leave the business as a result of a voluntary redundancy scheme.

Countries should be able to exit the euro as a “last resort” if they are unable to manage their debts, the German government’s independent economic advisers say, in a sign of Berlin’s hardening attitude towards propping up fellow members of the single currency, the Financial Times reported.The mere suggestion of a country leaving what was supposed to be an irreversible currency union had long been taboo. But Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, broke it two weeks ago by suggesting a possible five-year eurozone “timeout” for Greece.

Priory Hall developer Thomas McFeely will contest an application to extend his bankruptcy by five years, the Irish Times reported. The application has been brought on grounds including his alleged failure to disclose all his assets, the High Court has heard. Mr McFeely (67) was adjudicated bankrupt in Ireland in July 2012 and his bankruptcy is due to expire on Thursday, July 30th this year.

Yanis Varoufakis has insisted he did nothing improper as part of a five-month clandestine project he ran as Greek finance minister that prepared for his country’s possible exit from the euro, the Financial Times reported. The scheme, which was almost completed but not fully implemented, involved hacking into Greece’s independent tax service to set up a parallel payment system — accessing individuals’ private identification numbers and copying them on to a computer controlled by a “childhood friend” of Mr Varoufakis.

Spiraling German labor costs are starting to undermine the country’s famed competitiveness, threatening to hurt economic growth and investment in Europe’s largest economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Propelled by a healthy economy and record-low unemployment, labor costs here are rising fast, as the government has further tightened its grip on the labor market, driving up companies’ wage bills.

Romania seems to be receiving more than its fair share of attention — some good, some not so good. On the positive front, the economy, like others in central Europe that are plugged in to better German demand, is growing strongly. On the negative side, there are three main areas of concern. First, Romania is not immune to the problems in Greece, being principally affected through the banking system. There are four Greek-owned banks that are notably active in Romania, which together account for about 10 per cent of total bank assets.