The fate of Europe’s biggest steel plant will edge closer towards resolution when a deadline falls on Monday for final bids to take control of the troubled facility in southern Italy, the Financial Times reported. The giant Taranto works, which has been at the centre of a saga involving environmental disaster, insolvency and temporary nationalisation, forms the core of the Ilva business up for sale by the Italian government. At stake are not just thousands of jobs, but a region’s industrial heritage and a pillar of Italy’s manufacturing sector.

The deadline for bids on the troubled Italian steelmaker Ilva, the owner of Europe’s largest steelworks, has been pushed back until next week, the Financial Times reported. Final offers to acquire the company, which has been at the centre of a saga involving environmental disaster, insolvency and temporary nationalisation, had been due on Friday. But a spokesperson for Ilva confirmed to the Financial Times that the cut-off would be delayed to Monday.

There’s been sharp selling pressure on eurozone government bonds lately, led by Italy and concerns about its future in the Eurozone, The Wall Street Journal reported on an editorial. By the beginning of the year Italian government yields rose 40 basis points over German Bunds, a 25% increase. The main pro-European Union party, Matteo Renzi’s Democrats, are on the verge of a breakup. Euroskeptic parties are on the rise.

Italian banks are stuck in what stressed-debt experts call purgatory, still forced to pay a heavy price for their past sins despite loan data that suggests they are turning a corner. The rate at which loans are souring hit an eight-year low last year, but banks still face some 8 billion euros (6.74 billion pounds) a year in fresh writedowns, based on past rates at which already-soured loans have gone into outright default, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Struggling Italian clothing company Stefanel will ask a court for more time to submit a debt restructuring agreement with its creditors, two sources close to the situation said on Tuesday. In November, the court in Treviso, northern Italy, granted Stefanel until March 6 to file the documents, the International New York Times reported. "There is an agreement, but some details still need to be ironed out, both with creditor banks and potential new investors," one of the sources said.

Italian banks are stuck in what stressed-debt experts call purgatory, still forced to pay a heavy price for their past sins despite loan data that suggests they are turning a corner. The rate at which loans are souring hit an eight-year low last year, but banks still face some 8 billion euros (6.74 billion pounds) a year in fresh writedowns, based on past rates at which already-soured loans have gone into outright default, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Italy is looking at a €5bn state rescue of two struggling regional banks as the eurozone’s third-largest economy takes renewed steps to shore up its troubled banking system, the Financial Times reported. The rescues of Veneto Banca and Banca Popolare di Vicenza, which still require regulatory approval, would be a “precautionary recapitalisation”, according to people with direct knowledge of the discussions. This is a mechanism that allows eurozone states to pump state money into banks without infringing state aid rules.

A welcome dose of good news for the Italian economy. Annual industrial production in the eurozone’s third largest economy accelerated at its best pace since 2010, raising hopes of an uptick in economic growth for a country beset by a host of political and banking woes in recent months, the Financial Times reported. Overall output rose 1.6 per cent in 2016 – the best annual performance in six years. Industrial production accounts for just under a third of Italian GDP.

The abandoned farmhouse surrounded by acres of prime Tuscan vineyards, known as the Aquilaia estate, stands as a monument to failure—to the tens of billions of euros in bad loans that sank the world’s oldest bank, Bloomberg News reported. Born at about the same time as Michelangelo, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena crumbled under the weight of a lending binge whose legacy has become the headache of Italian taxpayers after the government said in December it would take it over. While the bank says it has already accounted for much of the potential losses, skeptics say the signs aren’t promising.

Italian banks are speeding up the sale of distressed loans backed by real estate, in an effort to mend balance sheets weakened by enormous piles of debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. But the banks still have a long way to go. For many loans, they are assigning a higher value than what buyers are willing to pay, meaning that the process of unloading bad loans is likely to remain drawn out. Bolstering the outlook are signs that Italy is coming out of a property slump, which would make it easier to sell more distressed loans. Italy is lagging the U.S.