The Saudi Shura Consultative Council agreed on Monday to study a recommendation to switch the Islamic weekend in the kingdom to Friday and Saturday, like other Gulf states, state news agency SPA reported.

The weekend in Saudi Arabia remains on Thursday and Friday, although other Gulf states have pushed it back by one day to reduce the difference with the rest of the world, which affects financial markets and businesses.

Energy-rich Qatar and a consortium led by Total of France have signed a joint venture agreement to build a $1.5 billion petroleum refinery in the Gulf state, local media reported on Monday.

The refinery will have a daily production capacity of 146,000 barrels of petroleum products, reports said.

A wide-scale rise in wages in Germany would not benefit other eurozone members, but would actually harm the single currency area as a whole, Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann said Monday.

"Given the relatively weak trading relations with peripheral European countries, they would barely profit from the reduced price competitiveness and increased consumption in Germany," Weidmann told the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview.

The European Commission released on Monday final deficit and debt data for eurozone and EU states that was in line with upward revisions announced in late March by key countries such as Spain and France.

The figures showed that Spain posted a 2012 deficit of 10.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), including the cost to the state of recapitalizing broken banks.

Swiss banks could adapt to a significant easing of their cherished secrecy practices, but only if global standards are created for information exchange to fight tax evasion, the head of the Swiss Bankers Association said in an interview published Sunday.

"Today, there is no global standard" for the automatic exchange of banking information, Patrick Odier told the NZZ am Sonntag weekly.

The International Monetary Fund and Egypt hope to conclude talks for a loan deal "in the coming weeks", they said in a joint statement Sunday.

The statement came after IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde met an Egyptian delegation in Washington this weekend that included Central Bank of Egypt Governor Hisham Ramez and Finance Minister Al-Mursi Hegazy.

German flag carrier Lufthansa said that most of its domestic, European and long-haul flights would be cancelled on Monday due to strike action by ground personnel and cabin crews.

"Due to strike action announced for April 22, nearly all Lufthansa flights to German and European destinations must be cancelled," the airline announced in a statement on Saturday.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde stepped up pressure Saturday on developed countries to both boost growth and undertake needed policy steps to put the crisis of five years ago firmly behind.

She said Europe, Japan and the United States had lagged on needed actions to restore global growth at a firm and sustainable pace.

Austrians disagree with their government over the need to maintain the country's banking secrecy, according to polls published Saturday which showed a majority in favor of lifting the controversial measure.

A Gallup poll for the daily Oesterreich found only 18 percent of Austrians wanted to maintain the strict banking secrecy policy.

Iran sees no need for an emergency meeting of the oil cartel OPEC over a recent drop in crude prices before the producers' annual session at the end of May, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said Saturday.

"No extraordinary meeting is needed as the May 31 meeting is coming up, and the price of oil had not gone below 100 dollars per barrel for a long time," Qasemi told reporters on the sidelines of an oil and gas trade fair in Tehran.