Fitch Downgrades Five Eurozone Economies
BBC: Fitch ratings agency has downgraded five eurozone economies, including Italy and Spain, citing financial weakness during the debt crisis.

Italy was downgraded two notches to A- from A+, while Spain was also lowered two levels to A from AA-.

Belgium, Slovenia and Cyprus were also downgraded, while Fitch cut its outlook for the Republic of Ireland.

Earlier this month, Standard & Poor's agency downgraded nine eurozone eoconomies, including France. » | Friday, January 27, 2012

Germany Backs Down on Tax Demand for Compensation Payments

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Germany has backed down on a controversial demand that former slave labourers for the Nazis should pay tax on pensions paid to them as compensation after protests from Belgium and Holland.

Belgium first contacted Germany a month ago to express its fury after "morally indefensible" tax bills were sent to victims of the Nazi forced labour programme during the Second World War.

After initially failing to respond, Berlin was forced to abandon the policy after Belgium threatened to raise the issue during emergency eurozone talks on Nov 30.

A spokesman from Germany's finance ministry on Monday announced that emergency legislation would be passed on Friday to make sure that the pensions would remain tax-free.

"This problem no longer exists, or at least will no longer exist very soon," he said. » | Bruno Waterfield, Brussels | Monday, November 21, 2011

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Germany Tax Levy on Belgian Nazi Slave Labourers Provokes Fury

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A decision by Germany to levy a tax on pensions received by Belgians who were slave labourers for the Nazi regime during the Second World War has provoked fury among survivors.

Last week demands for hundreds of euros from tax authorities in the German state of Brandenburg began to land on the doormats of surviving "dwangarbeiders" or their widows.

"It hits me not only financially but emotionally," Simone De Vos, 84, the widow of a forced labourer told the Gazet Van Antwerpen.

"My late husband had anxiety attacks for decades after his time in Germany. It is outrageous that the Germans now want money back."

According to media reports in Belgium, the German authorities last year passed a law stating that pensions for former slave labourers would be taxed at the rate of 17 per cent.

The tax has been applied retroactively from 2005 meaning those Belgian survivors of Nazism or their widows awarded pensions by Germany as a form compensation now face large bills. » | Bruno Waterfield, Brussels | Monday, November 21, 2011