Budgeting for absolute power

Germany’s plan to create a European budget commissioner with the authority to rewrite national budgets smacks of hegemony and hubris.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble is pushing to establish a European budgetary commission.
German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble is pushing to establish a European budgetary commission.

The German insistence on rules to govern the euro area has little to do with more effective functioning of this ill-considered union. It has everything to do with the German interests.

Not so long ago, the German authorities insisted that the Stability and Growth Pact did not apply to them. Today, they believe that the same rules, if forcefully enforced, would protect ...