Spanish jobless claims rose again in March, adding to signs of a softening economy amid growing political uncertainty, The Wall Street Journal reported. Jobless claims rose by 0.8% to 4.3 million in March from February, a new record high, the ministry said in a statement Monday. In annual terms, March claims were up 4% from a year earlier. The ministry didn't give an unemployment rate, but data last week from the European Union's statistics arm Eurostat showed Spanish unemployment stood at 20.5% in February.

The €24 billion bank recapitalisation plan is positive for Ireland's financial system but negative for its creditworthiness, credit rating agency Moody's said today, highlighting the possibility of another downgrade, the Irish Times reported. Moody's warning comes on the heels of Standard & Poor's one-notch downgrade of Irish debt and Fitch's flagging of another rating cut amid concerns about Ireland's ability to deal with one of the world's costliest bank bailouts.

France's Finance Minister Christine Lagarde pledged Monday to cooperate with investigators probing her involvement in the arbitration process related to the bankruptcy of formerly state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported.

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) has warned that proposed changes to rent legislation would “significantly impact” on its ability to repay the debt it has issued, the Irish Times reported. The agency is “very concerned” about the impact any move to allow retrospective rent reviews could have on the value of its assets. Any such legislation would have a “dramatic reduction in the value of the income-producing assets transferred to Nama” because investment properties are valued on a multiple of their annual rent.

Dutch car maker Spyker Cars NV Friday said its funding situation was tight as its Saab Automobile unit continued to burn cash faster than expected, and it warned that the Swedish auto maker's future was in doubt if it couldn't secure additional financing, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In its annual report published Friday, Spyker reiterated it was in talks to improve its financing and said it was confident it would happen. But how and from whom Spyker intends to get the required cash remains unclear.

The Irish finance minister said on Friday the country’s debt burden was “sustainable” despite the government’s commitment to support the latest bank recapitalisation, the Financial Times reported. Michael Noonan said the €24bn ($34.1bn) the banks have been told to raise to provide an additional capital buffer “will not add very much to the imposition on the taxpayer”. Ireland’s bank bail out has already cost €46bn. If the state ends up funding this latest recapitalisation, it would lift the bill to €70bn or more than 40 per cent of 2009 Gross Domestic Product.

The International Monetary Fund on Saturday denied a report in German magazine Der Spiegel that it was privately pressing Greece to restructure its debt. "As we have said consistently, the IMF supports the Greek government's position of no debt restructuring and its determination to fully service its debt obligations. Any reports claiming otherwise are wrong," an IMF spokeswoman told Reuters. Without citing any sources, Der Spiegel reported that the IMF had reversed its previous opposition to the idea of a Greek restructuring and now believed one was necessary soon.

Families will be hit by a spiralling debt crisis over the next four years that will see average British households plunge further into the red as the government austerity programme bites, official figures reveal, The Guardian reported. The Office for Budget Responsibility has raised its prediction of total household debt in 2015 by a staggering £303bn since late last year, in the belief that families and individuals will respond to straitened times by extra borrowing.

Ireland is on track to nationalize its banking sector after its government uncovered a €24 billion ($33.9 billion) capital shortfall in the latest round of "stress tests" of top banks, The Wall Street Journal reported. That gap will be plugged largely by taxpayers. The likely result will be that the government takes majority ownership of the country's six largest lenders, said Patrick Honohan, the governor of Ireland's central bank. Four of the six banks are already fully, or mostly, nationalized.

Anglo Irish Bank, the dying institution at the heart of Ireland's journey to near bankruptcy, confirmed Thursday an Irish-record 2010 net loss of euro17.7 billion ($25 billion) because of property development loans gone bad, the Associated Press reported. Anglo originally revealed its expected 2010 figures Feb. 8 and Thursday's audited figures contained only minor revisions. They eclipsed the previous record loss in Irish corporate history - the euro12.7 billion deficit that Anglo recorded in 2009.