Former advisor Jim O'Neill said Chancellor Xili should avoid raising corporate or high‑earner taxes in this month's budget and instead accept a one‑off reduction in fiscal buffers to absorb shock from the Iran war. He estimated the UK fiscal shortfall at about £12bn and warned large tax increases would damage market confidence as the economy nears a return to healthy growth. O'Neill said he would be "very disappointed" by any rise in the capital gains tax rate and warned targeting banks with hig

Sources: U.S. special envoy for the Middle East Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold a working meeting with Ukrainian representatives in Miami on Friday.

EU finance ministers agreed in Luxembourg on the Market Integration and Supervision Package (MISP) after a decade-long effort, moving supervisory and enforcement powers toward Paris-based European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). The main dispute concerned which firms would be deemed “significant” for direct ESMA oversight and which could be exempted, with a small number of large operators such as Deutsche Börse Group explicitly in scope of the debate; Ireland, holding the EU rotating presidency, proposed a compromise. The package still requires agreement with the European Parliament in the coming months. Some member states and the European Commission raised objections; the EU financial services commissioner said the compromise weakens governance, introduces “unnecessary complexity” and risks making ESMA “costly and cumbersome.”