Europe's largest retailers and online retail companies have urged the European Commission to rein in allegedly high fees charged by Visa and Mastercard saying that they hurt the bloc's competitiveness and hamper rivals, Reuters reported. Visa and Mastercard dominate the market for payment cards and have in recent years faced complaints from retailers about their fees, and what retailers say is a lack of transparency on these fees. The two U.S. companies process about two-thirds of card payments in the euro zone.

The Russian economy is in an increasingly precarious state as a result of a shift to a war mode and of Western sanctions over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, a report by the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE) said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The report, prepared for talks of European Union finance ministers, said that while still relatively stable, the Russian economy was only superficially resilient and that underlying imbalances and structural weaknesses were growing.

European leaders presented a united front in the US trade war on Friday, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz saying individual member states won’t strike side deals and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen indicating that a concrete proposal is needed for any serious talks with Washington, Bloomberg News reported. The comments underscore the EU’s strategy to stay together and speak with one voice as US President Donald Trump uses the threat of steep tariff hikes to persuade countries to sign bilateral trade deals that would be advantageous to the US.

The European Commission will announce on Thursday details of its next countermeasures against U.S. tariffs should negotiations with Washington fail, European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. "Tomorrow we will announce next preparatory steps, both in the area of possible rebalancing measures, and also in the areas important for the further discussions," Sefcovic told a news conference in Singapore after the signing of a digital trade agreement with the Southeast Asian country.

The European Union plans to hit about €100 billion ($113 billion) in US goods with additional tariffs in the event ongoing trade talks fail to yield a satisfactory result for the bloc, Bloomberg News reported. The proposed retaliatory measures will be shared with member states as early as Wednesday and consultations will last for a month before the list is finalized. The list could change in that time.

The two brands sold 3,269 and 757 plugin-hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), respectively, in the bloc in March, up from near zero sales in July 2024 when provisional tariffs were first introduced, research firm Rho Motion said in a report. EU tariffs of up to 45.3% on Chinese-built battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) came into full effect in November to prevent a flood of cheap cars. Facing disruption from U.S. tariffs, the EU and China are negotiating a relaxation of the European levies.

Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Monday that he sees greater momentum for ratification of the long-delayed trade agreement between the South American bloc Mercosur and the European Union as geopolitical and trade tensions grow, Reuters reported. Following 25 years of talks, the free trade deal, which had divided European nations, was finalized in December. But it still requires legalization, translation, and approval by member nations from both blocs.

E.U. officials ​announced on Thursday that they would delay their plans for retaliatory tariffs after President Trump’s abrupt decision to hit pause on some of the levies he had placed on Europe and much of the rest of the world, the New York Times reported. Mr. Trump’s announcement, a day before, had signaled what European leaders were hoping for: a possible willingness to negotiate. Washington’s pivot came just hours after European officials had approved retaliatory levies of 10 to 25 percent on about $23 billion of U.S. imports. But given the American shift in stance, E.U.

European Union member states voted Wednesday to approve retaliatory tariffs on $23 billion in goods in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, as the largest U.S. trading partner described them as “unjustified and damaging," the Associated Press reported. The tariffs will go into effect in stages, with some on April 15 and others on May 15 and Dec. 1. The EU executive commission didn’t immediately provide a list of the goods. Members of the 27-country bloc repeated their preference for a negotiated deal to settle trade issues.