19/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - According to Eurostat, spending on pensions (invalidity, old-age, partial, anticipated old age, early-retirement survivors) represented 12.6% of GDP in the European Union in 1998. Great differences were observed between Member States: Italy, for example, devoted 14.7% of its GDP to pensions that year, whereas Ireland only devoted 4.1%. Between 1990 and 1998, spending on pensions increased by 0.9 percentage points of GDP in the EU, going from 11.7% to 12.6%, notes...