VIENNA (Reuters) – The leader of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party is taking a public relations beating after refusing to apologize for likening anti-fascist protesters to a Nazi mob and his supporters to Jews.

Heinz-Christian Strache’s comment that “We are the new Jews” to an undercover journalist at a Vienna ball that critics say draws right-wing extremists has caused uproar and triggered at least a temporary setback for his resurgent euroskeptic party.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Senior U.N. nuclear inspectors plan another trip to Iran later this month after holding what both sides described as good talks on the Islamic state’s disputed atomic program.

The Jan 29-31 talks in Tehran were a rare direct dialogue in the long-running international stand-off, which has worsened in recent weeks as the West pursues a punitive embargo on Iranian oil and Tehran threatens retaliation.

VIENNA (Reuters) – United Nations nuclear inspectors and Iranian officials held what both sides described as “good” talks in Iran about suspicions that the Islamic Republic was seeking to develop atomic weapons, but said more discussions would be needed.

The U.N. inspectors went to Tehran on Saturday to confer with Iranian officials on Iran’s suspected atomic weapons program, and to try to advance efforts to resolve the nuclear row. Tehran says its nuclear activities are for peaceful electricity generation.

VIENNA, Jan 20 (Reuters) – Austria’s Volksbanken AG
(OeVAG) has been excused from meeting onerous
European capital targets by mid-year because it is in the midst
of a sweeping reorganisation, the country’s FMA markets watchdog
said.

“OeVAG no longer has to present a recapitalisation plan on
the level of the EBA (European Banking Authority),” an FMA
spokesman said.

VIENNA, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Top bankers sought to play
down fears on Tuesday that they would abandon emerging Europe in
a rush to hoard capital that could cripple efforts to bridge the
continent’s economic divide, but one senior official warned the
process was already under way.

Western banks need to shore up their balance sheets under
regulatory pressure to ensure a debt crisis does not drag them
into the abyss again just as it seemed they had turned the
corner from the 2008/09 financial crisis.

VIENNA, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Governments, regulators and
international lenders have agreed to cooperate in trying to
avert a stampede out of emerging Europe by banks seeking to
slash their exposure to risk and ride out the euro debt crisis.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, national authorities,
European Union bodies and the international financial
institutions said they agreed to pursue a second “Vienna
Initiative”, loosely modelled on a 2009 pact that prevented a
financial meltdown in eastern Europe after the decade’s global
economic boom went bust.

VIENNA, Dec 23 (Reuters) – Moody’s held Austria’s top
sovereign rating with a stable outlook on Friday but warned the
debt crisis posed a credit risk for it and most euro zone
states, putting pressure on the region’s policymakers to take
action.

“The longer the sovereign and bank funding markets remain
volatile, the more likely it is that further credit pressures
will develop for most euro area countries, including Aaa-rated
(ones),” the rating agency said early on Friday.

VIENNA, Dec 15 (Reuters) – UniCredit SpA’s
business in central and eastern Europe (CEE) is holding up well
despite the economic slowdown, a top executive said, adding it
was “nuts” to think Italy’s biggest bank by assets would quit
the region.

Gianni Papa, deputy group chief executive and head of
Unicredit’s CEE division, told reporters the case for staying
put remained intact because the region would on average grow
faster than western Europe and had greater demand for financial
services.

VIENNA, Dec 13 (Reuters) – Austria’s Financial Market
Authority (FMA) does not think any big Austrian commercial bank
will require more state aid to meet capital strength targets,
despite market volatility, the supervisor said.

Domestic banks were well placed to refinance despite
“enormous” problems with this issue elsewhere in Europe, FMA
co-head Helmut Ettl told reporters, adding there were no “stress
situations” for liquidity in the domestic sector.

VIENNA, Nov 25 (Reuters) – Oesterreichische
Volksbanken AG (VBAG), the Austrian bank that failed
this year’s European stress test, will post a loss this year
which is at least 10 percent more than forecast last month, it
said on Friday.

The country’s fourth-biggest bank blamed volatile markets
and poor economic conditions in some countries for the latest
profit warning.