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“Constant tinkering” with pensions rules is saddling British business with unmanageable cost and compliance burdens, company chiefs have warned, the Financial Times reported. The CBI employers’ group surveyed 160 businesses employing more than half a million people and found that eight of out 10 executives think the government should stop making changes to the pensions regime, after complex reforms. Business leaders are also concerned staff may stop saving for their retirement if tax benefits continue to be eroded as pensions become more complicated, the CBI found.

Hundreds of thousands of Greeks, who have other professions and may cultivate very little of their land, claim to be farmers in order to cash in on a variety of tax breaks and farming subsidies, the International New York Times reported. Lawyers and doctors, for instance, plant olive groves in northern Greece, though the climate is inappropriate, and then collect government compensation for damaged crops. The privileges of farmers have long been a hot-button issue in Greece. The country’s creditors have pressed past governments to rein in farmers’ benefits.

South Africa's Evraz Highveld Steel and Vanadium will defend its business rescue proceedings in court against British parent Evraz , the company said in a statement on Friday. The South African steelmaker, seeking protection from creditors after heavy losses due to cheap imports from China, said East Metals AG and Mastercroft S.A.R.L had instituted court proceedings to have a vote by creditors earlier this month declared invalid. Both are subsidiaries of the London-listed parent company, which acquired the South African steelmaker in 2008.

Listed housebuilder Cairn Homes and Lone Star have both submitted indicative offers for a portfolio of Royal Bank of Scotland loans backed by land earmarked for houses in Dublin, according to sources. Centerbridge Partners was also among bidders for the package of loans known as Project Clear, according to another source, who said the deadline for bids was Wednesday. Project Clear is comprised of loans secured against 1,850 acres of zoned land, with room for 20,000 houses and apartments, according to one source. It is reportedly worth as much as €500 million.

The European Central Bank says it wants euro zone countries to stir up growth with structural reforms, but its own money printing plans have taken the pressure off politicians for action, leaving European Union rules to drive often unpopular change, Reuters reported. And although the EU toughened up those rules during the sovereign debt crisis, the European Commission has been weak in enforcing them in the teeth of opposition from governments reluctant to coordinate their fiscal policies.

Spain’s unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in four years, according to official figures released on Thursday, lifting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s chances of winning a December general election in which joblessness is one of the critical issues. Spain’s unemployment rate fell in the third quarter to 21.2 percent, from 22.4 percent in the previous quarter, according to a report from the National Statistics Institute. That brought down the number of people out of work to about 4.85 million — the lowest since mid-2011.

In most respects, double-digit growth is a relic of the past for China. In the third quarter the economy grew by just 6.9% year-on-year according to official data, and probably by a percentage point or two less in reality. Yet bank loans increased by 15.4% in the third quarter compared with the same period in 2014, The Economist reported. Having released a torrent of credit to buoy the economy during the financial crisis, China was supposed to have started deleveraging by now.

Russia's biggest lender Sberbank does not believe the indebted Transaero airline could be saved even if it changes owners, RIA news agency quoted Sberbank First Deputy Chief Executive Maxim Poletaev as saying on Thursday. The creditor would not withdraw its lawsuit seeking to declare Transaero bankrupt but was ready for talks with a co-owner of Russia's S7 Airlines who had signed an agreement to buy at least 51 percent of Transaero from its current owner, Poletaev was quoted as saying.

The Greek government on Thursday dismissed the country’s top tax official, saying she was not fulfilling her duty to aggressively collect taxes and fight tax evasion, the International New York Times reported. The firing of the official, Katerina Savvaidou, the head of a supposedly independent public revenue authority, came at a sensitive moment in the country’s effort to mount an economic comeback and live up to the conditions of its international bailout program.

Mario Draghi suggested the euro area may need fresh monetary stimulus by December as a global economic slowdown threatens the currency bloc’s recovery, the Irish Times reported. “Concerns over growth prospects in emerging markets and possible repercussions for the economy from developments in commodity markets signal downside risks to the outlook for growth and inflation,” the European Central Bank president told reporters in Malta on Thursday after a meeting of the Governing Council.