LONDON (Reuters) – Here’s a nightmare for Europe’s leaders to ponder as they prepare for yet another summit to tackle the euro zone crisis: a bond auction fails in Spain, spreading solvency worries to Italy and beyond and triggering uncontrollable bank runs that spell the single currency’s end.

Is such a scenario likely? Policymakers hope not. Is it possible? They fear it might be.

LONDON (Reuters) – Creating a banking union for the euro zone could break the fever gripping the shared currency and buy time for governments to put the euro on a viable long-term footing, the Bank for International Settlements said on Sunday.

The endorsement by the BIS, a global forum for central banks, will add momentum to proposals for a single supervisor for big euro area banks, pan-European deposit insurance and a fund to wind down cross-border lenders in trouble.

LONDON (Reuters) – Take some pity on the pension fund managers of northern Europe.

They’re not facing deep cuts in their own pensions like retirees in Greece, but they are struggling to cope with an unprecedented drop in interest rates as investors flee weak euro zone countries and pile into safe-haven bonds.

LONDON, June 20 (Reuters) – Take some pity on the pension
fund managers of northern Europe.

They’re not facing deep cuts in their own pensions like
retirees in Greece, but they are struggling to cope with an
unprecedented drop in interest rates as investors flee weak euro
zone countries and pile into safe-haven bonds.

LONDON (Reuters) – Greece’s election has averted the immediate threat of a euro break-up, but it does nothing to restore the magic ingredient missing in the European and global economies – confidence.

Investors and corporate executives are paid to calculate risk. But they cope badly with uncertainty, and the poll has swapped one big fat risk – a victory for radical leftists opposed to the bailout program keeping Greece afloat – for a fresh dose of uncertainty: what changes to the plan will be sought by Greek conservative leader Antonis Samaras, the narrow election winner, and how will the rest of the euro zone respond?

LONDON (Reuters) – As the world’s 12th largest economy and No.4 in the euro zone, Spain by common consent is too big to fail. But all the signs are that the country is not too big for a bailout of its banks.

Markets have rallied this week partly on optimism that euro zone policymakers, proven masters at improvisation, will reach a compromise with Madrid on the terms of a bank rescue and so defuse the latest threat to the single currency.

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) – China needs to soften onerous requirements on European companies investing in its economy before Brussels and Beijing can start talks on a pact to unleash billions of euros of fresh investment flows, the EU’s top trade official said on Thursday.

A wave of Chinese direct investment could bring $250 billion to $500 billion in fresh capital to Europe this decade, according to a new report, and European companies are eager to expand in fast-growing Asia.

LONDON/FRANKFURT, May 28 (Reuters) – They were dismissed as
prophets of doom. Now, as the euro struggles to survive,
long-standing critics of Europe’s single currency are more like
prophets in their own time.

But when they say ‘I told you so’, many do so with a
regretful shake of the head, knowing the chaos and contagion
that could ensue if austerity-weary Greece, at the epicentre of
the crisis, quits the euro after a new election next month.

LONDON (Reuters) – The opening last week in northeastern Spain of a 37-million-euro stretch of motorway to nowhere is an irresistible metaphor for the euro, an ambitious project conceived in better times that is now seemingly running out of road.

With Spain heavily in debt, the authorities could not afford to finish the highway but opened the completed 6 km section near Lleida in any case to deter illegal joy racing.

LONDON (Reuters) – The opening last week in northeastern Spain of a 37-million-euro stretch of motorway to nowhere is an irresistible metaphor for the euro, an ambitious project conceived in better times that is now seemingly running out of road.

With Spain heavily in debt, the authorities could not afford to finish the highway but opened the completed 6 km section near Lleida in any case to deter illegal joy racing.