Two of the most significant impacts of the global financial crisis on Irish society have been the sharp rise in unemployment and the corresponding increase in the number of people leaving Ireland for better opportunities abroad, the Irish Times reported. At the beginning of 2008, just 4.9 per cent of the population was unemployed. In the 12 months to April that year, just 13,100 Irish people emigrated, and you would have been hard pressed to find many among them who felt they had no choice but to go.

Eight out of 10 British companies think pulling out of the European Union would be bad for business, according to a poll published on Thursday, Reuters reported. Talk of Britain breaking its 40-year ties with the EU gathered pace in January when Prime Minister David Cameron said he would negotiate a new role in Europe and hold a referendum by 2017 asking voters whether they wanted to stay in or leave. Of 415 firms surveyed by the research company YouGov, 78 percent thought staying in the EU would be in their best interest.

A plan to tax financial transactions in 11 European Union member states from 2014 is illegal, the bloc's lawyers have concluded, dealing what could be a final blow to the measure as proposed, Reuters reported. The opinion is not binding and Germany which backs the tax aimed at making banks pay governments about 35 billion euros a year after receiving taxpayer aid during the 2007-09 financial crisis, said it still wants swift introduction of the levy.

European lawmakers were close to a deal with the European Central Bank that would pave the way for the Parliament's approval of a single supervisor for European Union banks, after the ECB agreed to provide more details to lawmakers of the proposed agency's board meetings, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Italian economy shrank more than initially estimated in the second quarter as rising exports failed to offset a continued slump in consumer demand amid the longest recession since World War II, Bloomberg reported. Gross domestic product dropped 0.3 percent from the previous three months, national statistics institute Istat said in Rome. That compares with the Aug. 6 preliminary reading of a 0.2 percent contraction. Consumer spending declined 0.4 percent, with sales abroad increasing 1.2 percent.

The Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI) has denied claims it will allow hospital consultants, accountants or solicitors will automatically be allowed to retain ownership of “trophy homes” they can’t afford, the Irish Times reported. Speaking on RTE radio last night, insolvency practitioner Jim Stafford said new personal insolvency practitioners (PIPs) would be given leeway by the ISI to assess the “type of house that might be needed for a professional person... as opposed to a house that’s needed by someone who is in the PAYE sector”.

Ireland’s deputy prime minister has accused international bailout lenders of treating his country like an economic experiment and said €3.1bn in budget cuts and tax hikes demanded by them for next year should be scaled back, the Financial Times reported. Eamon Gilmore, leader of Labour, the Irish government’s junior coalition partner, said imposing that level of austerity risked damaging the country’s fragile economic recovery and society more broadly. “We will not let the Irish economy become some type of economic experiment for austerity hawks,” he said in an interview.

While Spanish manufacturing and services expanded in August for the first time in more than two years, falling bank lending threatens small companies in a country where only 2 percent of businesses employ more than 20 people. That is overshadowing the recovery Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy forecasts after a two-year recession, Bloomberg reported. “Spanish companies are most often small family-run operations,” said Nathalie Gianese, director of studies at Informa D&B, the research arm of Spanish risk insurer CESCE S.A.

Windreich AG, Germany's largest developer of offshore wind farms, has filed for insolvency and its chief executive has stepped down after financing talks for a 400 megawatt (MW) project stalled. The company made its filing with a German court late last week and now its CEO Willi Balz, who also owns the group, has resigned effective immediately, Windreich said in a statement late on Monday. "In talks with our investors it became clear that a change in management was a prerequisite for the successful continuation of talks," Windreich's new chief Werner Heer said.

The Minister for Finance has said that the publicity aspect of the new personal insolvency service may dissuade some applicants, but is still confident of its success, the Irish Times reported. Michael Noonan was responding to questions about the Insolvency Service of Ireland which has begun taking applications today from people who want to restructure their debts. The development means that in some cases people will be able to get some of their borrowings written off if creditors agree to deals. However, people who avail of the service will have their names published on a register.