Efforts in China to broaden a pilot program that deploys property taxes aimed at taming the real estate market are running into difficulties, showing the limits of a tool that supporters say could help stem rising housing costs and official corruption, the Wall Street Journal reported today. New housing data released yesterday underscore the challenges that Beijing faces in controlling home-price increases.

The European Central Bank, European Commission and the International Monetary Fund said yesterday that Ireland's government has passed its second-to-last review, another step toward exiting the bailout program it agreed to in late 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported today. But while the government is confident that it can finance itself entirely from the international bond markets next year, talks continue on its access to precautionary credit lines from the euro zone, the IMF or both that it can fall back on should events outside the country interrupt its ability to sell bonds.

Banks and payment card providers would face caps on the transaction fees they can demand from retailers under European Union plans to rein in charges that have been attacked by regulators as anticompetitive, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The European Commission, the 28-nation EU’s executive arm, will propose that interchange fees paid by retailers on card transactions should be capped at 0.2 percent for debit card payments and 0.3 percent for credit cards, according to draft plans obtained by Bloomberg News.

Spain’s cuts to renewable energy subsidies will leave many project developers facing bankruptcy, four industry lobby groups said, Bloomberg News reported. Spanish Industry Minister Jose Manuel Soria’s decision to curtail profits for power generators by 2.7 billion euros ($4.1 billion) this year “will lead many installations to bankruptcy because they won’t be able to repay the credit that financed them,” the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF) said yesterday.

One of Europe's top regulators has some good news for the hedge fund industry; pay curbs are not on the agenda, Reuters reported yesterday. While they will avoid the caps on bonuses facing bankers, Europe's hedge fund managers can still expect restrictions on the manner and timing of their pay under new regulations coming into force on Monday. The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) is the European Union's attempt to help protect investors and Gareth Murphy, a former hedge fund manager and equity derivatives trader with JP Morgan, is one of the key figures behind it.

The head of the Irish insolvency service has said people applying for bankruptcy under the new insolvency provisions will not need to hire a solicitor or barrister to go to court, the Irish Examiner reported yesterday. Lorcan O'Connor expects the service to be up-and-running by next month - with the first debt-relief notice applying from September. O'Connor said that filing for bankruptcy in Irish will cost less than €750.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras faces the first test of his revamped coalition yesterday as he seeks parliamentary approval of austerity measures to unlock bailout funds, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Greek unions, which held the third general strike of the year yesterday, demonstrated again today in central Athens and will rally outside the parliament building this evening as a two-day debate on the bill approaches its climax. A roll-call vote will come around midnight, hours before the scheduled visit of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

German high-end television maker Loewe AG's chief executive said that the move to file for protection from creditors' demands will speed up its search for an investor, Reuters reported yesterday. "Now we have three months' time to finish restructuring and make enough progress on the matter of finding an investor that the court and creditors agree to a plan," Matthias Harsch said.

Exports from the 17 countries that share the euro slumped in May, as did imports, an indication that the currency area's longest postwar contraction may have continued into a seventh straight quarter, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The European Union's statistics agency Eurostat said yesterday that adjusted for seasonal factors, exports from the euro zone to the rest of the world fell 2.3 percent from April, while imports were down 2.2 percent. It was the second straight month in which exports fell sharply, and the largest month-to-month fall since June 2011.

Poland will increase its budget gap for this year by nearly half, the government said yesterday, acknowledging the severity of the current slowdown in the economy so far among the most resilient to Europe's financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said that the government would increase its budget deficit by some 1 percent of gross domestic product, an equivalent of some $15.6 billion. The increase will be a strongly stimulating impulse "that will help the economy get back on track in coming years," Rostowski said.