Ireland will get euro zone support to smoothly exit its bailout programme at the end of this year, the head of euro zone finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem told the European Parliament Thursday, the Irish Times reported. “Ireland’s performed very well in its programme and will exit the programme, but there will be measures to support its gradual exit,” he said. “I can’t give you any details on the way that will be formed yet ... but there will be support to make sure that it is a good exit and not a temporary exit,” Mr Dijsselbloem said.

The Bank of England made no new attempt to talk down borrowing costs in financial markets on Thursday, prompting investors to pile on bets that it will raise interest rates sooner than it has suggested as growth picks up, Reuters reported. The Bank left monetary policy unchanged at its third monthly meeting under new governor Mark Carney and opted not to repeat its warning of July that investors were getting ahead of themselves by pushing up bond yields.

Insolvent German home improvement store chain Praktiker, a household name in Europe's biggest economy, will be dismantled and sold off piecemeal after its administrator failed to find a buyer for its remaining 130 outlets, Reuters reported. The stores, which have about 5,330 employees, will start a clearance sale in the coming weeks so their empty shells can be sold off individually, Praktiker's insolvency administrator Christopher Seagon said in a statement on Wednesday.

Whenever Germany thrived, so did the rest of Europe. But that long-held belief is being questioned by its neighbors, which see evidence that the country is taking off without them, the International Herald Tribune reported. Despite Berlin’s hefty financial support of the euro zone’s more beleaguered members in the last few years, the economic crisis has corroded commercial ties between Germany and the rest of Europe. Countries like Italy and Spain no longer have the purchasing power they once did, and they trade less with Germany because of it.

Bank of Ireland has attempted to defend its dealings with distressed mortgage holders saying it cannot do special deals as it has to remain profitable, the Irish Times reported. Speaking at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, Bank of Ireland chief executive Richie Boucher said the institution was offering deals to customers that it was confident would help to keep them in their homes.

When interest rates tumbled following Greece’s entry to the euro, a beachfront apartment or village house with a vineyard suddenly became an affordable investment for middle-class city-dwellers. But a second-home boom fuelled by easily available mortgages turned to bust as the country collapsed into recession, leaving a trail of unfinished buildings, bankrupt local contractors and cash-strapped owners unable to keep up with monthly payments, the Financial Times reported. A blanket ban on foreclosures on properties whose owners owe less than €200,000 is set to expire in December.

Banks have been accused of trying to stop mortgage holders in arrears opting for new state-backed insolvency deals, the Independent reported. The Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI) is due to start taking applications for debt deals from Monday. Its arrival was supposed to the big fix for the mortgage crisis. But now it has emerged that banks are writing to homeowners in mortgage trouble trying to persuade them to take a deal outside the new service.

Talks between Hungary’s government and its banking association over a relief plan for households with foreign currency mortgages are focusing on exchange rates, the timing of a possible debt conversion and interest on converted mortgage loans, the secretary general of the country’s banking association said Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal Emerging Europe blog reported.

Banks face being hit with a new set of international capital rules aimed at forcing bondholders rather than taxpayers to bail out failing institutions, the Financial Times reported. Global regulators are seeking support from world leaders to draw up proposals to force banks to hold a minimum amount of debt that can be “bailed in” if a bank collapses.

If joining the European Union was supposed to lift Romania out of poverty, it has yet to work in Aninoasa, a town of 4,800 people in the mountainous central region of Jiu Valley, Reuters reported. Six years after Romania's accession to the EU, not only is Aninoasa still poor - it has also become the first town in Romania to file for insolvency. Town officials took out a bank loan to fund investment projects, they could not repay it, they fell behind on paying other bills and over the years they got themselves so deep in debt they could not carry on.