BODY:
PRESSURE ON GERMANY
Forced labour sanctions closer
Negotiations between the German, Israeli and US governments to reach
a final settlement for
people used as forced labour by the Nazis have run into trouble, raising
the possibility of
economic sanctions by US public pension funds. Government representatives,
German
companies including Deutsche Bank, Allianz and DaimlerChrysler, Jewish
leaders, and lawyers
representing former forced labourers, will meet today in Washington.
Talks have been drawn out and hampered by differences over the amount
and allocation of
compensation. Today's meeting may be the last chance to hammer out
a deal before the 60th
anniversary of Hitler's invasion of Poland at the beginning of September,
when the German
government had hoped to make a symbolic start to paying claimants from
a specially established
fund.
Economic pressure on Germany from the US could increase sharply if the
deadline is missed.
Alan Hevesi, the comptroller of New York City, said sanctions over
the issue could not be ruled
out. He will hold a meeting on the subject with other state and city
financial officials and
pension fund controllers on September 16. His intervention is significant,
because of his role in
organising a campaign of sanctions against Swiss banks over their treatment
of Holocaust
survivors, which pushed them into a $ 1.25bn legal settlement. John
Authers, New York
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