Swedish car maker Saab Automobile said production at its Trollhattan plant was halted Tuesday afternoon due to a lack of components, and is expected to start up again Wednesday, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Saab resumed production at Trollhattan on May 27 after a two-month suspension. Production was halted after the auto maker failed to pay its bills and suppliers stopped delivering components. Upon resuming production, the company said it expected initial disturbances as it would take time to get everything running smoothly.

Germany’s senior bank regulator has criticised the European Banking Authority for its conduct of this year’s bank stress tests, accusing it of acting without legitimacy in setting controversial rules that define bank capital, the Financial Times reported. The comments from Jochen Sanio, head of BaFin, highlight the unhappiness in Germany at the EBA’s approach to the tests and cast doubt on the backing for the new authority from the financial sector in Europe’s largest economy.

Portugal's center-right Social Democrats had little time to savor their return to power Monday, launching immediately into getting a ruinous debt burden under control despite a shrinking economy, the Associated Press reported. Social Democrat leader Pedro Passos Coelho scored an emphatic win at the ballot box Sunday, with his party collecting 39 percent of the vote to 28 percent for the second-placed Socialist Party, which had governed for the past six years. Passos Coelho takes over as prime minister later this month with Portugal in the middle of a financial storm.

Britain does not need to change its current economic policies as recent weak growth and high inflation is likely to be temporary, but a new approach may be needed if these problems persist, the IMF said on Monday, Reuters reported. In an annual report on the UK economy, the International Monetary Fund broadly endorsed the deficit-reduction policies being pursued by the ruling coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, which the opposition say are causing weaker growth. The IMF said the government should maintain its current course.

Bank of Ireland has offered to buy back debt from subordinated bondholders for 10 per cent or 20 per cent of its original value in return for cash, or double this level if they accept shares instead, the Irish Times reported. The offer is part of the bank’s efforts to raise €5.2 billion to meet the Central Bank’s capital target. The bank announced plans to impose losses on the bondholders on Tuesday and released more details yesterday on the offer relating to €2.6 billion of debt. Analysts estimate that the bank will raise about €2 billion from the liability management exercise.

Thousands of Greeks protested outside parliament on Sunday against a fresh austerity package agreed in return for the country’s second bail-out in 13 months by the European Union and International Monetary Fund, the Financial Times reported. “Thieves, thieves….Where did our money go?” the protestors shouted, blowing whistles and waving Greek flags as riot police thickened ranks around the parliament building on Syntagma square in the centre of the capital.

Spain's central bank could offer asset protection schemes for bank takeovers at a later point in the restructuring of the country's ailing savings banks, the central bank's governor, Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez, said Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. "Right now it doesn't make sense," Mr. Fernandez Ordonez, a member of the European Central Bank governing council, said, adding the Spanish central bank is trying to establish a market value for the ailing unlisted banks known as cajas without protection schemes for investors.

Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, called on Thursday for the creation of a central finance ministry to oversee spending by countries that use the euro, the International Herald Tribune reported. The creation of such an entity would require a change in the European Union treaty, and there would certainly be a lengthy debate. But Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said on Thursday in Singapore that members of the euro area needed to work together more closely, perhaps indicating an openness to the idea.

The Czech Republic's lottery company, Sazka, has been forced into the Czech equivalent of Chapter 11 by its main creditors after shareholders refused to agree to restructuring and a management change, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Sazka has been on life support since the beginning of the year when it failed to meet terms on its Eurobonds issue amid accusations that its chairman deliberately acted against the company's interests.

The new board and management at the international property company formerly owned by businessman Seán Quinn will seek to appoint a bankruptcy receiver to the family’s company in Sweden, the Irish Times reported. Mr Quinn and his family won a court ruling in Sweden last month over-ruling the dismissal of Quinn Investments Sweden by the receiver that was appointed by Anglo Irish Bank to its parent Irish company.