Brussels' new budget powers draw first rebuke

The European Commission's sweeping new powers in budgetary oversight drew its first criticism on Thursday (12 January), when a Belgian minister said the EU institution lacks the democratic legitimacy to alter national spending plans.

"The commission is today going too far with its measures. Who knows [economic affairs commissioner] Olli Rehn? Who knows where he has come from and what he has done? Nobody. Yet he tells us how we should conduct economic policy. Europe has no democratic leg...