VIENNA (Reuters) – Roman Catholic and Orthodox theologians reported promising progress Friday in talks on overcoming their Great Schism of 1054 and bringing the two largest denominations in Christianity back to full communion.

Experts meeting in Vienna this week agreed the two could eventually become “sister churches” that recognize the Roman pope as their titular head but retain many church structures, liturgy and customs that developed over the past millennium.

The delegation heads stressed unity was still far off, but their upbeat report reflected growing cooperation between Rome and the Orthodox churches traditionally centered in Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

VIENNA, Sept 21 (Reuters) – Pressure on bank earnings due to new taxes and regulations is threatening a nascent loan recovery in the former Communist part of Europe and weighing on its economies, one of the region’s biggest banks said on Tuesday.

Austria’s RZB [RZB.UL] (RIBH.VI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) also said in a study on the eastern European banking sector that bad debt levels may go on rising longer than expected in at least some countries as stagnation or contraction persists.

RZB is eastern Europe’s third-biggest lender via its international arm Raiffeisen International.

VIENNA, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Mortgages in foreign currencies are an acute risk in Hungary, where homeowners borrowed heavily in Swiss francs and are now suffering from the forint’s depreciation, the head of Austria’s central bank warned on Monday.

Governor Ewald Nowotny and his central bank have long been critical of Austrian banks, which collectively are the biggest lenders to Hungarian borrowers and expanded foreign currency lending aggressively during Hungary’s boom years.

“The central bank has long warned of the dangers of foreign currency loans,” Nowotny said in an Internet chat with readers of Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard.

VIENNA/BUDAPEST, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Hungary needs to rebuild trust with international investors and doing so will help the struggling forint currency, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said on Friday.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s centre-right government has confounded markets since sweeping to a huge victory in an April election, shutting down talks with the International Monetary Fund to reclaim what he calls Hungary’s “economic sovereignty”.

Further comments eschewing austerity and first suggesting it could overshoot next year’s budget target agreed with Brussels, and then backtracking to say the goal will be met, have left investors wary, hitting the forint and pushing up debt yields.

VIENNA (Reuters) – The financial crisis is not over and governments have more to do to pull banks off state support, although no euro zone country should default on its debt, European Central Bank officials said on Friday.

ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny told reporters at a trade union conference that government action was needed to wean banks off the emergency supply of cheap cash the bank has provided since the crisis erupted in late 2008.

That added to the impression that the fate of some euro zone banks — particularly in Ireland and Portugal — is now back at the forefront of investors’ and policymakers’ concerns, even after the agreeing of new stricter rules on capital last week.

VIENNA, Sept 16 (Reuters) – The Austrian Mint, which makes the popular Philharmonic gold bullion coin, said on Thursday a spike in sales it has seen in May due to worries about Europe’s economic future has abated considerably since June.

Sales of the coin, one of the best-selling worldwide, dropped 41 percent to 468,507 ounces in the year to end-August compared to the same period in the “exceptional” year 2009, the mint’s Kerry Tattersall told Reuters.

“Sales were fulminant in April and May when many people were unsettled in Europe because of the euro,” Tattersall said. “Since June the market has calmed down quite a bit, and of course we also have a summer lull.

VIENNA (Reuters) – The depth of the European Union crisis triggered by Greece’s debt woes and the risk it presented for the bloc will force even notorious naysayers to agree to a stronger EU role, Austria’s finance minister said on Wednesday.

“While the crisis was so deep and the potential threat to the euro so severe, it was still such a struggle to create the right structures to make decisions, and to make the right decisions,” Josef Proell told Reuters in an interview.

“That has to teach us a lesson, including those who are always critical of stronger European rules,” he said. “It has to force us into better European processes.”

VIENNA, Aug 27 (Reuters) – Austrian nationalised bank Hypo Group Alpe Adria lost almost half a billion euros in the first half of 2010 as its asset clean-up and the economic crisis in the Balkans made charges for bad loans nearly double.

The scandal-ridden bank, whose former boss was arrested two weeks ago on suspicion he diverted bank funds, said on Friday its net loss tripled to 499 million euros ($634 million) and reiterated it would return to profit only next year.

The group will lose less in the second half of the year, so will probably not need another state capital injection, Chief Executive Gottwald Kranebitter told journalists in Vienna.

VIENNA, Aug 20 (Reuters) – Austria is to give whistleblowers reduced penalties and create special prosecuting units to try to stem a tide of white-collar crime and corruption, much of it linked to politicians.

Investigations into the near-collapses of a bank close to the late rightist leader Joerg Haider and of real estate groups with links to politics have threatened to overwhelm understaffed and underqualified prosecutors, and put the spotlight on Justice Minister Claudia Bandion-Ortner.

The minister on Friday told reporters: “Corporate crime is getting ever more complex. We need to rearm in the fight against white collar crimes and corruption.”

VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian internet bookmaker bwin (BWIN.VI: Quote, Profile, Research), which is merging with Britain’s PartyGaming (PRTY.L: Quote, Profile, Research), said its second-quarter loss was due to one-off startup and marketing costs and would not recur in the rest of the year.

Bwin, Europe’s biggest online sport betting operator, posted second-quarter core earnings that were only half of what analysts had expected and turned into a loss on the bottom line, mainly due to costs for starting a French betting site.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the June quarter fell 27 percent to 11 million euros (9 million pounds), as marketing costs for the Soccer World Cup also weighed. Analysts in a Reuters poll had on average expected 20 million euros.