Washington / AFP The “breakthrough” deal announced last Wednesday to resume handing out bailout money to Greece sounded like old times: the International Monetary Fund working with European countries again as official lenders to Athens. In the end, however, the anti-global crisis lender again refused to support Greece’s third rescue program with its own financial contribution. The IMF said …

  Bloomberg Euro-area economic confidence rose for a second month in May as the European Central Bank prepares to present updated economic projections that could provide further clues about the impact of its stimulus programme. An index of executive and consumer sentiment increased to 104.7 from a revised 104.0 in April, the European Commission in Brussels said on Monday. That’s …

  Frankfurt / AFP Mario Draghi may have bought himself a brief respite from the threat of deflation. The cost? More than a quarter of a trillion dollars. On Thursday, the European Central Bank president should be able to deliver his first snippet of good news for a year on his mandate. Most economists in Bloomberg’s monthly survey predict the …