Euro area finance ministers agreed early Tuesday on the terms of a bailout for Spain's troubled banks, saying that €30 billion ($36.88 billion) can be ready by end of this month, the International Herald Tribune reported on an Associated Press story. The finance ministers for the 17 countries that use the euro as their official currency will return to Brussels on July 20 to finalize the agreement, having first obtained the approval of their governments or parliaments, eurozone chief Jean-Claude Juncker said early Tuesday morning.

Royal Bank of Scotland and two other banks have abandoned talks on restructuring Dubai Group’s $10bn debt and threatened to bring unprecedented legal action against the investment vehicle of Dubai’s ruler, sources close to the matter said, Gulf Times reported on a Reuters story. The walkout by RBS, German lender Commerzbank and South Africa’s Standard Bank at the beginning of June could prevent a deal for the entire restructuring just as an initial agreement is about to be circulated to other banks, five sources said.

Tighter credit conditions and a weak economy weighed on the U.K. housing market in June as house prices fell and activity slowed, a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Separately, a survey from the British Retail Consortium U.K. retail sales for the first half of 2012 were subdued as the wettest June on record curbed spending, despite shoppers having an extra day off to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Jubilee. House prices retreated further in June amid a weak economy and the euro-zone debt crisis.

The number of wealthy French people planning a move to London has climbed following François Hollande’s victory in the country’s presidential elections, according to London-based property agents, lawyers and wealth managers, the Financial Times reported. Knight Frank, the property agent, said sales of prime property to French buyers had risen 40 per cent in the three months to the end of June 2012 compared with the same period in 2011. Average prices paid by these buyers had risen from £1.1m to £3.9m.

Eurozone finance ministers will meet Monday to build on measures agreed last month to tame the debt crisis, seeking to provide fresh momentum as the economy slows and markets turn sceptical, Agence France-Presse reported. A June 28-29 EU summit was hailed as a breakthrough, promising fresh capital for Spain's struggling banks, a European bank union to keep the lenders in line and making it easier for the bloc's new bailout fund to help states in trouble.

Greece's three-party coalition government will try to get the economy out of its deep recession by encouraging private investment and making privatizations its "highest priority," finance minister Yannis Stournaras said Saturday, the Associated Press reported. "The privatization program aims at attracting important international capital that will be invested mainly in property development and infrastructure," Stournaras told parliament on the second day of the debate on the new government's policy platform.

Spain is ready to create a single “bad bank” to house the distressed assets of its teetering financial sector, as it prepares to finalise terms of an EU bailout that is dividing the eurozone and spooking markets, the Financial Times reported. Eurozone finance ministers gather in Brussels on Monday aiming to agree broad conditions for Spain to unlock up to €100bn of loans to recapitalise its banks, as well as addressing the fraught issue of how the risks are shared in the long term.

Britain's banks are "throttling" the economic recovery because of an anti-business culture which focuses on short-term profits, the business secretary, Vince Cable, has said. As Ed Balls warned of widespread outrage if the ousted Barclays chief executive, Bob Diamond, receives a £16m pay-off, Cable accused banks of undermining multibillion-pound measures to help businesses, The Guardian reported.

Debt-burdened poultry group Doux, which went into administration last month, threatening the livelihood of 3,400 workers and 800 farmers in France, has attracted 11 takeover offers, unions at the firm said, Reuters reported. Bidders included rival poultry producers LDC and Tilly Sabco, co-operative Terrena, agribusiness firm La Financière Turenne La Fayette, and a consortium led by oilseed group Sofiproteol, union officials said. Doux's administrators had organised a bidding round with a deadline for offers on Thursday as part of efforts to rescue one of the world's largest poultry exporters.

About 160 academics published a petition Thursday calling on German citizens to put pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to block any further moves toward European integration that would make German taxpayers foot the bill for the debts of other euro-zone countries. The petition specifically hits out at Ms. Merkel's concessions to other euro-zone governments at a summit of European leaders last week. In all-night negotiations, Ms.