Anglo Irish Bank has sold several hundred million euros of its 9 billion euros United Kingdom loan book and will increase its efforts once the sale of its U.S. book is completed, its chairman said on Thursday, Reuters reported. "We are making some progress on the UK book," Alan Dukes told journalists in Dublin. "We are tying up the U.S. book sale now and we will be able to devote more energy to see what we can do with the UK book.

The owner of troubled car maker Saab, on Thursday said it will make a euro32 million ($44 million) gain if a planned sale of its Spyker sports car business to U.S.-based private equity firm North Street Capital goes through, The Associated Press reported. Swedish Automobile warned however that there was no assurance that a deal will be completed and that the conditions may change.

Europe took another step Wednesday in its slog toward approval of a broader bailout fund for overly indebted countries, as Finland’s Parliament agreed to contribute its share despite an unresolved dispute over its demand for collateral from Greece, the International Herald Tribune reported. The 103-to-66 vote, with 30 legislators absent, still leaves 7 of the 17 members of the euro zone yet to ratify a bailout fund that, despite expanded resources and power, is considered much too small to fend off further market attacks on Greece and other wounded countries.

The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, urged the European Union to shed the plodding pace of reform that has left it struggling to contain the sovereign-debt crisis, warning that the bloc risks falling apart if it doesn't quickly come together, The Wall Street Journal reported. "The pace of our joint endeavor cannot be dictated by the slowest," Mr. Barroso said Wednesday in his annual state-of-the-union address.

Arrears among credit union members rose 23 per cent to €813 million in the nine months to June 2011, as borrowers and credit unions alike felt the impact of long-term unemployment and economic austerity, the Irish Times reported. Figures from the Irish League of Credit Unions, which represents 496 credit unions in Ireland, show that some 14 per cent of outstanding loans are more than 10 weeks in arrears. The league’s chief executive, Kieron Brennan, said it would be difficult to predict the pattern of arrears in the year ahead. “It depends where the national economy goes.

An offer from Contor Industries GmbH to buy Austria's troubled A-TEC Industries appears to have fallen through because of a legal dispute, the Austria Press Agency reported on Wednesday. A-TEC accepted the offer from Contor this month, saying it fulfilled terms agreed with its creditors, but has been forced to back away for now, APA reported A-TEC's chief executive as telling an extraordinary shareholder meeting. CEO Mirko Kovats said this was because a suit filed by Czech investment group Penta Investments had spooked an investor that Contor had lined up for one of the assets, APA reported.

Germany will be subsidising its weaker eurozone partners for a lifetime and Greece, Italy and Portugal face big changes if the European currency is to survive, Foreign Secretary William Hague said in an interview published on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Britain had been vindicated for its decision not to join the 17-nation currency club but was very concerned about the euro breaking up, Hague told the weekly Spectator magazine.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will have to walk a fine line on Wednesday, when his government presents its 2012 budget amid faltering growth and a deepening debt crisis in the euro zone, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Sarkozy's room to appeal to French voters ahead of next year's presidential elections is constrained by his commitment to rein in France's deficit—the highest among triple-A-rated euro-zone countries—and retain its prized credit rating. "In France, the problem of deficit reduction is a credibility problem," said ING economist Julien Manceaux.

Greek lawmakers approved a controversial new property tax Tuesday that aims to boost revenue as the country struggles to obtain a critical installment of international bailout loans that will prevent it from default, The Associated Press reported. The new tax passed 154 votes to 143 against in the 300-member parliament. It was announced earlier this month after international debt inspectors suspended their review of Greek reforms amid talk of missed revenue targets and delayed implementation of austerity measures. The inspectors are expected to return to Athens this week.

Workers at an oil refinery owned by LyondellBasell Industries NV in southern France voted Tuesday to strike to protest against the closure of the plant announced by the company earlier in the day. "They voted around noon and the strike started immediately," Charles Foulard, a leader of the CGT Union for the petrochemical industry, told Dow Jones Newswires in a telephone interview.