The continued inability of Europe to agree on Greece's next batch of bailout cash weighed on markets Wednesday, a day when much of Wall Street will be packing up early for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Greece's partners in the group of 17 European Union countries that use the euro once again failed to agree a strategy that would have allowed them to release more money for the debt-crippled country. Though officials say a deal is close — the finance ministers reconvene on Monday — a few thorny issues still need to be ironed out.

Everyone's drawing lines in the sand, but the leaders are so far apart they might as well be on different beaches.

The European Union heads into a critical summit Thursday to hammer out a €1 trillion ($1.28 trillion) budget through 2020 — and it promises to be one of its most bitter fights in years.

Bank of England policymakers mulled increasing their quantitative easing stimulus at their November meeting, but ruled out cutting interest rates below their current record low level, minutes showed on Wednesday.

The BoE said in a statement that its nine-member monetary policy committee (MPC) had voted 8-1 to maintain its quantitative easing (QE) stimulus amount at £375 billion ($597 billion, 466 billion euros) after Britain's exit from recession.

Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse wants to clean house and remove all tax evaders from its clientele, bank chairman Urs Rohner said in an interview published on Wednesday.

"It is clear that a business model based on untaxed assets has no future," Rohner told the Swiss-German daily Tages-Anzeiger when asked about a pending tax deal between Bern and Berlin.

Growth in China's auto market, the world's largest, is forecast to slow to an average eight percent annually from now until 2020 as consumers' tastes change, consultancy McKinsey said Wednesday.

The country's auto market grew an average of 24 percent a year between 2005 and 2011, the global management consulting firm said in a newly issued report.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras warned Wednesday that Eurozone stability was threatened after the zone's finance ministers failed to strike a deal to unlock bailout funds for Greece.

"Our partners and the IMF have a duty to do what they have taken on. It's not only the future of our country but the stability of the entire eurozone which depends on the success of the conclusion of this effort in the next few days," Samaras said in a statement.

Volkswagen is recalling about 2,500 Beetles in the U.S. because the front passenger seat air bag could inflate and injure a small child.

The recall includes 2012 and 2013 Beetles with leather sport seats. If the seat gets wet, the module that's supposed to detect a child seat could fail. The air bag could go off in a crash and hurt the child.

Egypt says it has reached an initial deal with the International Monetary Fund that will secure a $4.8 billion loan to revive the country's ailing economy.

Ashraf el-Araby, the minister for international cooperation, said Tuesday the agreement was reached with an IMF team that has been in Cairo for weeks, negotiating a deal and discussing the government's economic program.

Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti insisted Tuesday that the eurozone was overcoming its debt crisis and that member states were determined to preserve the common currency.

"The euro area is overcoming its crisis," Monti told a UAE-Italy business forum in Dubai, where he stopped as part of a tour of the Gulf region.

Pressure piled up on France on Tuesday to reform its economy following a critical debt downgrade from ratings agency Moody's but initial market reaction was muted and the government stood by promises that change is underway.

Moody's is now the second of the three major ratings agency to cut France's top-notch triple A rating, noting it down to "Aa1" with a warning that a further downgrade could be on the cards.