European Union finance ministers meet in Madrid today to discuss how to curb swelling budget deficits as Greece moved closer to asking for emergency aid to finance the region’s biggest shortfall, Bloomberg reported. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou yesterday asked for a meeting with the EU, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, which agreed last week to back a 45 billion-euro ($61 billion) rescue package for the cash-strapped nation. Talks will begin in Athens on April 19.

The Quinn Group today withdrew its objection to the appointment of permanent administrators of its insurance division, Finfacts reported. On March 30th, provisional administrators were appointed to take control of Quinn Insurance, which has 1.3m customers, including those who transferred from the health insurance business of the Irish unit of UK company BUPA in late 2007. The Financial Regulator had claimed that Quinn was in serious breach of regulatory rules, by providing guarantees for borrowing by other units of the Quinn Group.

Dubai International Capital said Tuesday that it will continue with its plan to refinance its German aluminum company Almatis, despite distressed-debt investor Oaktree Capital implementing U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings that could see it take control of the company, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The announcement comes a day after the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeals turned down DIC's petition for an injunction to prevent Oaktree's Chapter 11 plan.

The financial crisis in Greece is best understood by looking at the hard numbers, The Wall Street Journal reported in a commentary. Over the next five years, Athens has to raise €240 billion, roughly the country's current gross domestic product. Of that amount, €150 billion is to pay down the principal owed on maturing bonds. The rest is interest. This illustrates why the euro-zone offer of a €30 billion standby credit facility is just a drop in the bucket compared to Greece's overall cash requirements.

Grupo Corporativo Ono SA, Spain’s biggest cable television operator, got approval from lenders to restructure €3.5 billion ($4.8 billion) of loans, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. Holders of more than 80 percent of the debt agreed to the terms, which include delaying loan repayments to 2013, the Madrid-based company said today in a statement. Ono changed the terms of the loans as the worst recession in Spain in six decades eroded prospects for growth in the cable market.

Workers at a French timber subsidiary in Gabon held managers hostage in a French-style "bossnapping" to secure their pay demands, both sides said Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported. The managers, including the new Chinese buyers of the firm, were released on Monday several hours after being held at their plant in the port of the capital Libreville. The dispute took place at the premises of Leroy Gabon and Pogab, which are both subsidiaries of the French plywood company Plysorol, which was placed in receivership last week by a French court.

Derek Hughes, the founder of bookshop chain Hughes & Hughes, has put together a group of investors in a move to reopen some of the chain’s Dublin stores, The Irish Times reported. The group went into receivership in February. However, a number of other interested parties are believed to be in negotiations with landlords over the leases of former Hughes & Hughes high-street stores. In late February, Ulster Bank moved on the Hughes & Hughes chain with the appointment of Deloitte’s David Carson as receiver.

The Securities Commission says there may be more legal action against four Lombard Finance and Investments directors, including former National Party cabinet minister Sir Douglas Graham, Radio New Zealand reported. Sir Douglas and the other directors, former Labour Party cabinet minister, Bill Jeffries, Michael Reeves, and Lawrence Bryant face penalties of up to $500,000 each for allegedly misleading investors. The civil action by the Securities Commission comes two years after Lombard Finance was placed into receivership, owing $127 million to about 4400 investors.

France and Germany traditionally have been the “motor” of the European Union, but relations between the two countries are badly strained over the Greek debt crisis, which is just the latest example of a new German willingness to resist the demands of Europe and assert its self-interest under Chancellor Angela Merkel, The New York Times reported. The European Union is facing a serious crisis over financing and its currency, the euro.

European leaders’ pledge to help Greece with an unprecedented aid package may be a stepping stone on the way to a more unified fiscal policy, said economists at Barclays Capital and Commerzbank AG, Bloomberg reported. Euro region officials have spent the past two months debating whether to maneuver around the rules of the Maastricht Treaty, which left the bloc without a common finance ministry to match its shared central bank. The treaty also contains a “no bailout clause,” making it harder for governments to agree on fiscal transfers for euro members facing fiscal crises.