EU lacks power to enforce rules

The EU Commission is demanding stricter budget regulations from member states without being able to enforce them, complains the left-liberal daily Frankfurter Rundschau: "Will it be able to force a country like Spain to raise its productivity? Will it be able to induce Berlin to do more for domestic demand if that's the only way to correct imbalances? No one knows. Because Commissioner Olli Rehn and his boss José Manuel Barroso have got cold feet. They've omitted to specify how coordination in the Eurozone may be achieved. Specifically they've only been active in places where the Commission already plays a certain role. They've outlined relatively clearly how they want to check if plans for national budgets are suitable for the Community. But here too it remains fully unclear how Brussels wants to solve the problems identified without interfering with the members' budget laws. That, as Rehn never stops pointing out, is not his goal. And it's not in the cards anyway, as the prompt defence mechanisms in Berlin and Paris have shown. Brussels' message is as follows: We want to keep an eye on member states. But whether anything will come of it is something else altogether."

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