Portugal

As the European Commission tries to assess the relative damage wreaked by a Russian food embargo on peach and nectarine producers in Greece as well as on competitors Spain, Italy and Portugal, farmers in northern and central Greece are at a loss about what to do with thousands of tons of produce.

The European Commission has cut this year’s fishing quotas for 10 member countries to compensate for overfishing in 2013 as it seeks to regenerate Europe’s depleted fish stocks.

"25 ambassadors, consuls to be appointed"

BELGRADE -- Serbia currently has some 25 unfilled ambassadorial and consular positions abroad, but plans to appoint heads of these offices by the end of the year.

Serbia's Foreign Minister, Ivica Dacic, said that Serbia is about to appoint 20 new ambassadors, including to US and China, in the next four months.

The initial plan was to appoint ten new ambassadors to posts in July. However, Dacic told the daily newspaper Danas on August 8 that there had been a delay after the ministry realised the number needed to be doubled.

By Stefan Riecher

Germany probably underperformed Spain last quarter for the first time in more than five years as the euro-area recovery almost ground to a halt.

More than 5,000 women who are the victims of domestic violence will not be able to vote in Turkey’s Aug. 10 presidential elections due to security reasons.

By John O'Donnell & Renee Maltezou

Brussels is considering scrapping the troika that supervises Greek reforms to allow Athens to pursue its own plan to bolster the economy in return for a drip-feed of debt relief, European officials say.

By Paul Taylor

In the biggest advance in European integration since the launch of the euro in 1999, the European Central Bank will take charge of supervising banks from Helsinki to Lisbon in November after subjecting their books to unprecedented scrutiny.

Greek bond yields slipped on Friday, slightly outperforming other lower-rated euro zone bonds as investors anticipated a credit ratings upgrade from Moody's later in the day.

Moody's has an extremely speculative Caa3 rating on Greece, the worst in the euro zone. It is scheduled to review the rating on Friday. Any announcement will come after the market closes.

While three quarters of Europeans (75 percent) are satisfied with their lives, only 42 percent of Greeks appear satisfied with their personal situation (compared to 58 percent in autumn 2013), according to a Eurobarometer report regarding life in Europe released on Friday.