The exchange ofletters has been played out on a broader landscape of rising unemployment and fears that French industry will fall further behind as its economy slumps.
Barroso Tuesday sent letters to the leaders of countries with high unemployment levels -- Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain -- detailing the commission's road-map for combating the problem.
The problem detailed well by Arthur Delaney writing on the HuffingtonPost is that even though Congress will likely push back the deadline before extended benefits expire at the end of the month, state unemployment agencies still have to send out letters to benefits recipients informing them that they will be ineligible for the next "tier" of benefits starting next month.