Germany's Bundesbank today stepped up its resistance to a European Central Bank plan to buy billions of euros worth of Spanish and Italian government bonds to reduce those countries' crippling borrowing costs, the Irish Times reported. The ECB is being forced to take a greater role in fighting the euro zone crisis while the bloc's governments negotiate legal and political hurdles to coordinating a longer-term response, but the Bundesbank wants to limit central bank action.

Details of Greece's €11.5 billion ($14.2 billion) austerity plan are emerging as Prime Minister Antonis Samaras moves to demonstrate his government is serious about cost-cutting efforts ahead of meetings with European leaders later this week, The Wall Street Journal reported. Although the specifics of the cutbacks still remain a work-in-progress, senior government officials have made clear that the new measures will include across-the-board cuts in pension benefits—a politically sensitive issue—as well as wage reductions and layoffs in the broader public sector.

As post-election euphoria wanes, French President Francois Hollande returns from vacation under pressure to show that beyond dismantling the legacy of his predecessor he can act decisively at home while grappling with recession in Europe, Reuters reported. Awaiting him are the crisis that still haunts the euro zone, fragile relations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French political opponents who accuse him of sunning himself on the beach while Syria slides into chaos.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras of Greece will be greeted with military honors when he arrives in Berlin on Friday, but his pleas for easier bailout terms are likely to meet a cool reception, a top German official signaled Sunday — setting up a standoff that could unsettle financial markets next week, the International Herald Tribune reported. Volker Kauder, a top official of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party in Germany, told the magazine Der Spiegel that Parliament was in no mood to grant Greece further concessions. “Sooner or later,” said Mr.

A liquidator has been appointed to the former holding company behind the Quinn group of businesses previously owned by the five adult children of businessman Seán Quinn, the Irish Times reported. Quinn Group (ROI) Ltd was wound up last month by the share receiver, Kieran Wallace of KPMG, appointed to the company by the former Anglo Irish Bank, which is owed €2.88 billion by Mr Quinn and his family. A spokesman for Quinn Group described the liquidation as a move to “tidy things up”.

The European Parliament is attempting to link legislation on bank capital requirements that’s in the final stages of negotiations with a contentious proposal to create a way to wind down failing banks — and the move looks likely to be approved, The Wall Street Journal Real Time Brussels blog reported. When lawmakers return from their August break, they will begin the final stage of talks on a new set of rules, called CRD IV, that will require banks to hold more capital, more liquid assets and improve their corporate governance. But that’s not all.

Businesses are increasingly using a little known procedure to stave off the threat of insolvency. The number of company voluntary agreements, which allow businesses to renegotiate their debts, increased by 32% in the last year to 924 from 699 in the previous year, according to accountancy firm Wilkins Kennedy, The Guardian reported. To enter a CVA a company's arrangement for repaying creditors must be approved by three-quarters of them and supervised by an insolvency practitioner.

Spain will put its bank rescue fund in charge of the bad assets separated out from the nation’s struggling lenders that are receiving a European bailout, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The FROB fund will be the main shareholder in a so-called bad bank, according to a proposal that will be approved by the Cabinet on Aug. 24, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told the Efe news agency in an interview Sunday. All the banks receiving loans from European rescue funds will have to transfer their non-performing assets to the bad bank, he said.

UK budget hotel chain Travelodge agreed a 635 million pound ($999.6 million) debt restructuring that will give lenders control of the business but confirms a significant loss for its Dubai owners who bought the company in 2006. The announcement comes after lending sources told Reuters in February that the group's lenders would assume control of Travelodge after it breached loan agreements in 2011.

Banks in the Netherlands are suffering rising losses on their domestic real-estate loan books, and warn that the pain isn't over as the industry struggles with structural overcapacity and a weak economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Financial services company SNS Reaal NV on Thursday said nonperforming loans in its Dutch property loan book rose 38% to €1.33 billion ($1.63 billion) in the first half, representing 42% of its total outstanding loans.