Euro

By Inyoung Hwang

The options market isn’t convinced European Central Bank President Mario Draghi will succeed in his aim to weaken the euro.

 Systemic lenders cannot ignore market concerns over likely significant additional capital requirements

By Dimitris Kontogiannis

Central Bank watchers predict that the European Central Bank (ECB) will focus on monitoring the impact of last month’s unprecedented package of measures during this week’s monthly meeting The European Central Bank (ECB) is unlikely to make new policy moves at its monthly meeting this week, focusing instead on monitoring the impact of last month’s unprecedented package of measures.<

Bulgaria has observed just 16% of economic recommendations issued by the EU Commission, a European Parliament survey reveals.

The data cited by EurActiv shows the country is close to the European average, which is 18% and which shows member states largely ignore the EU Commission's proposals for reform.

By Dimitra Manifava

The Greek economy is estimated to have lost out on some 16 billion euros, or just under 9 percent of the country’s expected gross domestic product this year, as a result of delays in state payments to enterprises as well as in transactions between companies in Greece.

Agrokor is to buy a 53.1 percent stake in the Slovenian food retailer Mercator for a price of 86 euro per share, media reported on Thursday.

From the money paid by Agrokor, shareholders will receive 325 million euro, Mercator subcontract suppliers 20 million euro, while the rest will go directly to the Slovenian company, which to finance its bank loans.

The Operational Sectoral Programme 'Human Resource Development' and the Operational Sectoral Programme 'Raising Economic Competitiveness' (POS CCE) could use up 100 percent of their respective European Funds by the end of 2015, said Eugen Teodorovici, Minister of European Funds, according to a press release remitted on Wednesday to AGERPRES.

Bank of Cyprus Pcl, the Mediterranean nation’s biggest lender, is weighing a capital increase of as much as 1 billion euros ($1.36 billion), said three people familiar with the matter.

Nikolić thanks Norway for assistance

BELGRADE -- President Tomislav Nikolić has thanked Norwegian FM Borge Brende "for the assistance provided by friendly Norway during the catastrophic floods in Serbia."

The president also "noted that the two countries have enjoyed a continuity of good relations regardless of the situations they have been in."

Nikos Chrysoloras & Eleni Chrepa

Katerina Savvaidou, nominated Greece’s top tax collector, has her job cut out for her.