Spain is ready to request a euro zone bailout for its public finances as early as next weekend but Germany has signaled that it should hold off, European officials said on Monday. The latest twist in the euro zone's three-year-old sovereign debt crisis comes as financial markets and some other European partners are pressuring Madrid to seek a rescue program that would trigger European Central Bank buying of its bonds, Reuters reported. "The Spanish were a bit hesitant but now they are ready to request aid," a senior European source said.

Greece’s government submitted its 2013 draft budget on Monday, outlining enormous spending cuts as the country’s foreign lenders returned to resume talks over a broader austerity package in exchange for the rescue money the country needs to meet expenses, the International Herald Tribune reported. The draft budget spells out about $10 billion in spending cuts and savings for 2013.

Experts may recommend this week that European banks should separate retail banking from their riskier investment arms to make them safer and soften the impact of financial crises, Reuters reported. But European Union regulators are unlikely to pursue such a radical reform at a time when they are trying to build a banking union to underpin the euro currency and the financial sector. The European Commission asked the group of experts, led by Bank of Finland Governor Erkki Liikanen, to explore a reform of bank structures in the wake of the 2007 global financial crisis.

Have you noticed that the half-life of eurozone optimism is getting shorter? It was only three weeks ago that Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank president, announced his outright monetary transactions, a programme of sovereign bond purchases with no upfront limit. It seemed that the consensus was that this had either ended the crisis, or its acute phase, the Financial Times reported in a commentary.

The beleaguered British banking industry has faced angry politicians, regulators and consumers. This fall, a new player has joined the inquisition: a bespectacled bishop wearing a cross made of nails, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Right Reverend Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham, is grilling top bankers as part of a new parliamentary inquiry into "banking standards" that represents the U.K. government's latest attempt to shake up the industry.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to protest against the spread of economic "austerity" in France and Europe, The Guardian reported. Chanting "resistance, resistance", the crowds had been rallied by around 60 organisations, including the leftwing Front de Gauche and the French Communist party, which oppose the European budget treaty. "Today is the day the French people launch a movement against the politics of austerity," said the Front de Gauche president, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

General Motors Co on Friday dismissed claims made in a $3 billion lawsuit filed by Saab's parent that the U.S. automaker deliberately bankrupted the Swedish company by blocking a deal with a Chinese investor, Reuters reported. GM, in a response filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, said the automaker had the legal right to approve Saab's transaction with China's Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co. "The nub of plaintiffs' complaint is that GM declined to approve the transaction plaintiffs proposed to enter into with Youngman," GM said in the filings.

Spanish discount supermarket chain Dia is to acquire the Spanish and Portuguese arms of insolvent German drugstore chain Schlecker, it said on Friday, to diversify its product range and expand its presence in the two countries, Reuters reported. Dia has agreed to pay 70.5 million euros ($90.6 million) for Schlecker's 1,127 stores and three distribution centres in Spain and 41 stores and one distribution centre in Portugal. Schlecker filed for insolvency in January. The German company reported net sales of 318 million euros on the Iberian peninsula in 2011.

After weeks of wrangling, Greece’s coalition government said it had reached a basic agreement on Thursday over highly unpopular new austerity measures that could set off a new round of social unrest, the International Herald Tribune reported. The government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras must now present the proposed actions — $15 billion in cuts to pensions, salaries and state spending, and at least $2.6 billion in new taxes — for further discussion with the foreign lenders, who have demanded them in return for releasing the next portion of aid to the stricken country.

The Spanish government presented €13 billion ($16.7 billion) of spending cuts and tax increases for 2013 and said it will place new limits on early retirements as political turmoil heightens investor concerns over Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's ability to slash a towering budget deficit and stabilize one of Europe's largest ailing economies, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government's budget plan for next year includes a share of the spending cuts and tax increases it presented in July designed to cut the deficit by €65 billion through the year 2014.