Foreign News: The missing 20,000 Greek pensioners

Short report today on foreign-language news

• Grecia no encuentra a 20.907 de sus jubilados – ABC.es

  ABC (Spain) reveals that investigations carried out by Greece’s social security administration concluded that thousands of pensioners in Greece who were receiving benefits had already died, their surviving family members receiving the money in their stead. In total almost 21,000 people receiving benefits could not be located. Given Greece’s fiscal problems, this report puts the the magnitude of Greek administrative lapses in context.

• Le Figaro – Flash Eco : Italie : ”coeur de la zone euro atteint”

  Le Figaro (France) reports that French President Sarkozy’s office has stated “if there is a problem for Italy, then it goes to the core of the euro zone.” Sarkozy’s office added that "Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are working very hard to support Italy,” without specifying details. We know that it is rumoured that this support will be unveiled as a secret plan to create bilateral aid agreements that would facilitate, EU fiscal oversight in Italy, followed by ECB intervention.

• Le Figaro – Flash Eco : Pas de pouvoirs supranationaux à l’UE

  Le Figaro (France) also reported that Sarkozy made clear that the objective is “not at all to give “supranational powers to the European Commission” in response to a direct question from Agence France presse. He said "one wants to be able to discuss methods of having more intrusive powers for Brussels in overseeing a country like Greece.” Sarkozy also stressed that the Germans were also not looking for supranational powers for the EC.

• La Ligue arabe sanctionne la Syrie, les violences continuent – LeMonde.fr

  Le Monde (France) details how the Arab League voted on Sunday to institute sanctions against Syria with immediate effect. Some twenty-odd civilians were killed and 25 more injured in clashes with government forces.