Finland and the Netherlands, the euro zone's most hardline creditor states, cast the first doubts on Monday on a European summit deal designed to save Spain and Italy from being engulfed by the currency bloc's debt crisis, Reuters reported. The Finnish government told parliament that Helsinki and its Dutch allies would block the euro zone's permanent bailout fund buying bonds in secondary markets. Euro zone leaders agreed last Friday that rescue funds could be used in a "flexible and efficient manner" to lower government borrowing costs. Their statement gave no further detail.

Could Ireland be the biggest winner from last week’s European summit? If the price of its bonds is any guide, investors seem to think so, the Financial Times reported. The country’s financial markets have enjoyed a sharp turnround since the middle of last year, switching from one of the worst performing markets in the wake of its 2010 bail-out to one of the best. The EU summit agreement, which allows the European Stability Mechanism, the eurozone’s new rescue fund, to invest directly in troubled banks, has provided a further boost.

Facing a bank crisis in Spain and the prospect of outbreaks in other major countries, European leaders have pledged to establish a new agency aimed at curbing problems afflicting lenders in the euro zone, the International Herald Tribune reported. Yet for now the proposal amounts to little more than a vague statement of intent, one that has prompted more questions than answers. Will the new regulator have the power to rein in risky practices and hold offending banks accountable, for example, and will it be willing to exercise that power?

The Irish government is mobilizing a campaign to seize advantage of a fresh euro-zone agreement to allow rescue funds to finance the currency bloc's broken banks, offering possible relief at the source of Ireland's financial straits, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deals struck by European leaders on Friday elicited perhaps the loudest cheers from Ireland, which more than any other euro-zone nation has suffered the ill effects of a tight embrace between a country and its banks.

Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas on Sunday dismissed as "speculation" a report in the Sunday Times that said the company was considering putting itself up for sale and had entered debt restructuring talks with its lenders, Reuters reported. The Sunday Times, which cited no sources for its information, said that Vestas' banks had given it an "ultimatum," and demanded that the company prepare a comprehensive financial restructuring plan.

A deepening mortgage crisis in Ireland is threatening to derail the country’s fragile economic recovery and raising fresh questions about the health of its banks, the Financial Times reported. Stubbornly high unemployment and lower wages, caused by a four-year economic crisis, have pushed many mortgage holders to the brink. At the same time plummeting property prices, which have halved in four years, mean hundreds of thousands of borrowers are stuck in negative equity and cannot simply sell their homes to escape debts.

Germany's parliament ratified the euro zone's permanent bailout fund late Friday, as well as rules that enshrine German-style budget discipline in euro-zone countries and most other European Union members, despite widespread criticism of Chancellor Angela Merkel upon her return from a European summit where she made major concessions on support for Spain and Italy, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The administrators of debt-burdened French group Doux, one of the world's biggest poultry exporters, have extended a deadline for takeover bids by three days to July 5, a Doux spokesman said, as interest increased in buying the company, Reuters reported. The family-owned firm went into administration at the start of June with debt of 340 million euros ($423 million), putting at risk 3,400 staff and about 800 poultry farmers in France.

Germany may be willing to move sooner than expected to accept shared liability of euro-zone debt and would support short-term measures to deal with the acute financing problems facing some of the region's governments, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal ahead of Thursday's European summit. Mr. Schäuble said Germany could agree to some form of debt mutualization as soon as Berlin is satisfied that the path toward establishing centralized European controls is irreversible.

Euro zone experts discussed a Finnish proposal for Spain and Italy to issue covered bonds to make their debt more attractive and to allow the euro zone's permanent bailout fund to bid at primary auctions of the two countries, officials said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The aim of the Eurogroup Working Group of deputy finance ministers and treasury officials is to find a way to lower financing costs for the two sovereigns that European Union leaders meeting in Brussels could discuss later.