Changes Are Approved to Ease Germans’ Costs for Welfare Programs

BERLIN — Leaders from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition agreed Monday on a raft of changes to social welfare programs aimed at easing costs for average Germans, to bolster the government’s sagging popularity less than a year before parliamentary elections.

ECB deaf to call for more action to help euro zone

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - European Central Bank officials showed no sign of bending to renewed international pressure to do more to boost the euro zone's struggling economy.

EU executive to push for bigger rescue fund, win IMF support

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission wants euro zone leaders to agree to a bigger rescue fund to nudge the IMF into backing debt-stricken European economies, despite German resistance to boosting it, the EU's top economic official said on Thursday.