France and Germany’s “historic” agreement to establish a eurozone budget has run into immediate opposition from hawkish governments that are sceptical of plans to create a fiscal capacity for the single currency area, the Financial Times reported. Eurozone finance ministers are meeting in Luxembourg today for the first eurogroup gathering since a Franco-German deal this week on the next steps to reform monetary union. It includes a plan to develop a euro-area budget to help economies “converge” and boost investment during downturns.

France’s finance minister has hailed substantial progress in Franco-German talks over a budget for the eurozone, signalling that an accord could be reached at a meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel this week, the Financial Times reported. But any deal between the French president and the German chancellor will fall short of Mr Macron’s initial integrationist ambition in terms of size and governance. After one last round of talks over a Franco-German road map for eurozone reforms, Bruno Le Maire, French finance minister, tweeted at the weekend that a “deal is now

Germany’s ThyssenKrupp, under increasing pressure from the activist hedge fund Elliott Management, is scrambling to renegotiate the terms of a proposed European merger with Tata Steel, according to people familiar with talks between the companies. The industrial group and its Indian rival are in the final stages of creating a steelmaking powerhouse with revenues of €15bn that would be Europe’s second-largest producer of the metal, behind ArcelorMittal, the Financial Times reported.

German industrial production unexpectedly fell in April, continuing a run of poor economic news from Europe’s largest economy, Bloomberg News reported. The 1 percent drop in output, along with a shock decline in factory orders reported earlier this week, indicates a moderate pace of expansion at the start of the second quarter. A separate report showed that exports fell 0.3 percent in April, while in France, industrial production also declined. The euro fell after the German data and was down 0.2 percent at $1.1772 as of 9:44 a.m. Frankfurt time.

Orders for German manufactured goods pulled back sharply in April amid a decline in domestic and eurozone demand, in a gloomy sign for the economy’s performance in the second quarter after a disappointing start to 2018, the Financial Times reported. New orders in manufacturing fell 2.5 per cent in April from March on a seasonally and calendar adjusted basis, according to the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis). It marked the fourth month in a row in which orders have fallen, FactSet data show. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.8 per cent rise.

Deutsche Bank AG’s new chief executive officer, Christian Sewing, suffered a fresh setback in his efforts to reinvigorate Europe’s largest investment bank as S&P Global Ratings cut the lender’s credit rating. S&P reduced the rating by one notch to BBB+, the third-lowest investment grade, citing “significant execution risk” after several management changes and strategy updates in past years, Bloomberg News reported. Shares of the lender rebounded from a record low as the credit rating company said Deutsche Bank has good capital and liquidity buffers.

Lufthansa will not be investigated for market abuse over rising ticket prices following the collapse of local rival Air Berlin, the German cartel office said on Tuesday. The watchdog had received complaints over high ticket prices and had been looking into the matter with a view to decide whether to instigate a full investigation, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Air Berlin collapsed in October last year, leaving Lufthansa with a monopoly on some German domestic routes for a few months.

Deutsche Bank AG’s head of emerging-market debt trading has become the latest top executive to exit as high turnover roils Europe’s biggest investment bank. Sean Bates, who held senior roles at the firm since before the 2008 financial crisis, will be succeeded by James Davies, Deutsche Bank spokesman Charlie Olivier said Monday. Bates declined to comment, Bloomberg News reported. A string of top managers have departed since Christian Sewing took over as chief executive officer last month and signaled a restructuring of the struggling lender after years of losses.

Managers of insolvent P&R Group are being investigated after it was discovered the investment firm sold nearly one million more shipping containers than it owned, the Munich prosecutors’ office said on Thursday. Once the world’s biggest lessor of shipping containers, P&R sells containers to investors and its sister company in Switzerland rents them out to shipping companies, Reuters reported. P&R later buys back the containers from investors.

Europe’s largest economy cooled sharply in the first quarter amid a drop in government spending and weak exports—a sign that a stronger euro and global tensions are beginning to leave a mark on the German economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Germany’s annualized growth rate slowed to 1.2% from 2.5% in the fourth quarter of last year, the Federal Statistical Office said Tuesday. This means that the German economy was growing more slowly than the U.S., which registered growth of 2.3% in the same period.