Austria committed to increase spending by as much as 1.6 billion euros ($2.1 billion) until 2016 for construction projects after a builder filed for the country’s biggest post-World War II insolvency and put 5,000 jobs at risk in an election year, Bloomberg reported. The measures decided in the weekly government meeting in Vienna today include both new projects and bringing forward planned ones to this year and next year, Chancellor Werner Faymann told journalists today. Faymann said he still plans to balance the budget by 2016.

Spanish plastics bottle maker La Seda de Barcelona will ask shareholders to approve its debt refinancing plan and allow it to withdraw from insolvency proceedings on Wednesday, a person close to the company with knowledge of the plan told Reuters. La Seda said in a stock market notice on Tuesday that it had reached a preliminary deal to refinance 75 percent of its syndicated debt with creditors, after saying last week it would file for insolvency.

U.S. law firm Brown Rudnick has been hired to represent small investors in Britain's Co-operative Bank who are fighting for a better deal in its 1.5 billion pound rescue plan, sources familiar with the matter said, Reuters reported. The bank's parent, the Co-operative Group, is making bondholders swap their debt at a discount of at least 30 percent for new bonds and equity in the bank, which will be listed on the London Stock Exchange. The so-called "bail in", which has been used in bank rescues in Ireland, Spain and Cyprus, has angered many of Co-operative Bank's 5,000 retail bondholders.

Moscow Commercial Court has extended the receivership at AMT Bank for another six months, thus supporting the receiver's request, RAPSI reported from the courtroom. The Deposit Insurance Agency requested an extension because it has failed to complete all the necessary procedures. The next hearing is scheduled for December 17. The Moscow Commercial Court declared AMT Bank bankrupt on June 20, 2012 after the Deposit Insurance Agency filed for the bank's bankruptcy. The agency was appointed as the bank's receiver in October 2011.

Dublin is facing fresh calls to hold a public inquiry into its banking crash following the broadcast of a phone call between senior executives at Anglo Irish Bank, which suggests the bank deliberately misled regulators as it sought help during the financial crisis, the Financial Times reported. The taped conversation between Anglo Irish executives John Bowe, head of capital markets, and Peter Fitzgerald director of retail banking, took place three days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Alpine Bau, the insolvent Austrian arm of Spanish construction group FCC, faces being broken up after late-night talks to save the company in its current form failed, putting up to 5,000 jobs at risk, Reuters reported. The head of Alpine Bau's works council, Hermann Haneder, said on Monday a consortium of rival builders was now looking at taking over parts of the company, either at the level of provincial divisions or individual projects. "The question is, will the workers be kept on when the projects are finished?" said Haneder, who took part in the last-ditch talks.

Ireland’s low tax revenue compared to peer countries is accounted for by relatively low levels of tax paid by those at the lower end of the income spectrum, according to a study published today by the Economic and Social Research Institute, the Irish Times reported. Those on higher incomes in Ireland pay proportionately similar amounts of tax to their better-off counterparts in high-tax countries such as Germany and the Nordics.

EU finance ministers failed to reach a deal on new rules for bailing out European banks after nearly 18 hours of negotiations early Saturday morning, forcing them to reconvene next week for a make-or-break session ahead of a summit that was supposed to set the course for a future EU “banking union”, the Financial Times reported.

Portugal is at the forefront of Europe’s latest baby bust, one that is shorting the fuse on a time bomb of social costs in some of the world’s most rapidly aging societies, The Washington Post reported. As in many corners of the industrialized world, Europe has faced a gradual decline in birthrates since the 1960s. But in a number of the region’s hardest-hit countries, a modest rebound during the 2000s — when European governments welcomed immigrants and rolled out cash benefits for young couples starting families — has now gone into reverse.

Euro finance ministers on Thursday agreed on broad guidelines on how to use the bloc's permanent bailout fund to rescue banks from failure, delivering on a long-promised goal to stabilize the bloc's financial system, the Associated Press reported. Enabling the 500 billion euro ($670 billion) rescue fund to shore up struggling banks directly is a pillar of the 17-nation eurozone's so-called banking union, which seeks to hand European institutions the job of supervision and rescue rather than leaving weaker member states to fend for themselves.