Finnish lawmakers failed Tuesday to reach a clear all-party majority on whether to support the country's participation in a bailout of Portugal, The Wall Street Journal reported. Lawmakers had discussed the country's participation in the bailout within their own parties, ahead of a scheduled decision in the Grand Committee of the Finnish parliament on Wednesday. The Grand Committee decides parliament's position on EU legislation and the decisions by its 25 members are politically binding.

Greece expects that a June audit of its budgets will show that a new financial-aid package of nearly €60 billion ($86 billion) will be needed to cover its financial needs stretching into 2013, a senior Greek government official said Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The official, with knowledge of the talks between Greece and the European Union and International Monetary Fund, said the issue of extending current packages, or arranging new loans, will be discussed at a regularly-scheduled meeting of EU finance ministers next Monday and Tuesday.

France will refuse a cut in the cost of Ireland’s European bail-out loans at next week’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers as long as Dublin maintains its ultra-low corporate tax rate, the Financial Times reported. Paris appears to be setting itself against a growing European view that Ireland should be given some extra room for manoeuvre as European leaders weigh the need for a new aid package for Greece, which could also involve a second rate cut.

The manufacturing future of Silentnight, the UK’s biggest bedmaker, has been saved after HIG Capital, the US-based private equity firm, bought the company out of administration on Saturday night, the Financial Times reported. But Neil Mernock, chief executive, in effect blamed the Pension Protection Fund for the failure of attempts to win agreement among creditors to support a Company Voluntary Agreement which had offered suppliers 65p in the pound owed.

British house prices suffered their biggest annual fall in 1.5 years in April as worries about the economic outlook deterred buyers, mortgage lender Halifax said, the Irish Times reported. On the month, prices were 1.2 per cent lower, the biggest fall since September 2010 and confounding forecasts for a 0.1 per cent gain. Prices had been flat in March. "Weak confidence amongst households, partly due to uncertainty over the economic outlook, is constraining housing demand and resulting in some downward movement in prices," said Halifax housing economist Martin Ellis.

Government officials from France and Germany went out of their way Monday to stress the need for a unified euro zone even as intensifying worries over Greek debt piled pressure on the currency bloc, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a Europe Day speech, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon on Monday said it's paramount that euro-zone states continue to show solidarity towards one another—signaling France could agree to go further to help Greece meet its funding needs for next year.

Worries about Greece’s intractable debt problem deepened on Monday, stoking fears that the country remains on a path to fiscal disaster and that European leaders do not have a convincing plan to prevent a default, the International Herald Tribune reported. European political leaders as well as the European Central Bank have ruled out any kind of restructuring of Greek debt, saying it would undermine confidence in other countries like Portugal and Ireland and potentially create panic in financial markets.

Junior debt holders should take a loss on their holdings to help rescue an ailing bank, a global bank lobby group said on Monday, Reuters reported. The Institute of International Finance (IIF) backs so-called bank "bail ins" -- whereby losses would be forced on shareholders and bondholders to recapitalise an ailing bank before taxpayers are called upon.

European officials are preparing to revamp Greece’s bail-out package after concluding that Athens would be unable to raise money in the markets early next year, as envisaged under a €110bn ($158bn) rescue plan, the Financial Times reported. Eurozone ministers this weekend publicly acknowledged that Greece would probably need additional cash from the European Union or other international institutions. George Osborne, UK chancellor of the exchequer, said changes to the Greek bail-out programme were “inevitable”.

The number of company insolvencies in England and Wales rose sharply in the early months of 2011, while individual insolvencies continued to decline, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The government's Insolvency Service said Friday that there were 4,121 compulsory liquidations of businesses during the first quarter, an increase of 3.7% from the fourth quarter of 2010, and of 2.1% from the first quarter of 2010.