Marta Fernández should have been celebrating. After looking for work for months, she found a position in a media company in Madrid. But her new job, working full time for €300 a month, will barely cover her rent. She is one of the luckier Spaniards aged 25 and under, of whom more than half are languishing outside of work or education as the country suffers one of the highest levels of youth unemployment in the EU, the Financial Times reported. The abrupt end of Spain’s construction boom left thousands of young labourers without work.

Demonstrators turned out in large numbers for May Day rallies in hard-hit European countries on Tuesday, protesting their governments' push for austerity and flexing populist muscle ahead of key Greek and French elections, The Wall Street Journal reported. Protesters used this year's labor-day celebration, which came amid new signs of economic contraction across much of Europe, as a platform against a German-led view that spending cuts and tax increases are the best medicine for the region's sovereign-debt woes.

Spanish oil heavyweight Repsol YPF SA has lost nearly one-fifth of its valuation after Argentina's move to seize control of YPF SA sliced off a huge chunk of the company's production and earnings. Yet, two weeks after the Argentine bombshell, some investors and analysts are starting to devise a potential upside scenario for the battered Spanish company, The Wall Street Journal reported.

More than a fifth of Lloyds Banking Group’s Irish residential mortgage book is impaired or unlikely to be repaid in full, it said today, but its impairment charges fell, the Irish Times reported. In a statement Tuesday, the bank said 67 per cent of all its loans in Ireland were classified as impaired at the end of the first quarter. But the lender's Irish impairment charge fell to £526 million (€643 million) from £1.144 billion a year earlier, and £711 million or the last quarter of 2011, it said.

After a strong rally at the beginning of the year, French bank shares are back in the doldrums, Dow Jones reported. Despite launching major restructuring plans, bolstering the capital buffers regulators say are needed to absorb possible future losses, slashing their enormous balance sheets, reducing their risk exposure and lowering their funding needs, their shares are once again languishing close to last summer's painful lows.

Spain has joined seven other euro-zone economies in recession, according to data released Monday, providing further evidence that austerity policies are failing to regenerate confidence in the region's economies and heightening pressure on the government as the country braces for a week of antiausterity protests, The Wall Street Journal reported. Almost every piece of new economic data in recent weeks has reinforced the impression that large swaths of the European economy are contracting.

European countries have narrowed their differences over new rules on bank capital ahead of a key meeting of finance ministers, but European officials say a big gap remains over whether member states should be allowed to impose higher requirements on their own banks, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ministers meet Wednesday in a gathering called specifically to pin down rules over how much capital banks in the bloc should be forced to hold on their balance sheets. Also in dispute is whether banks should be able to count capital held in insurance subsidiaries as their own.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has said he is to establish a Restructuring Board in the coming weeks to implement the recommendations of a report on the credit union movement, the Irish Times reported. The report by the Commission on Credit Unions, published last week, said the restructuring of credit unions will require significant funding, including State funding. The amount required will not be known until the restructuring process gets under way, according to the report.

Ireland's finance minister warned on Sunday that a rejection of Europe's new fiscal treaty in an Irish referendum next month would not only block access to Europe's new permanent bailout fund, but would also put fresh IMF funds out of reach, Reuters reported. According to the wording of the treaty, a "No" vote would cut Ireland off from additional funding from the European Stability Mechanism should it - as is likely - need additional non-market funding when its 85 billion euro EU/IMF bailout ends next year.

Terra Firma, the private equity group chaired by Guy Hands, is in advanced talks to acquire Four Seasons Health Care in a deal which would value the group’s debt and equity at £825m. The care homes group is seeking to refinance its debt before a September deadline, and a deal could be announced as early as this week, the Financial Times reported. Terra Firma Capital Partners would provide about £300m of equity to Four Seasons, which became the UK’s market leader after the collapse of Southern Cross last year.