Torn in two directions in its dual role as a political institution and guardian of the treaties, the Commission is frequently inclined to compromise at the expense of budgetary discipline. In the area of fiscal surveillance, the Commission is echoing Marx. Not Karl Marx, but US comedian Groucho Marx, who is supposed to have said of himself that “These are my principles.
If you don’t like them ... I have others." The binding force of the debt rules is ultimately weaker now than ever. France has breached the deficit rules for the ninth time in succession – and always with the Commission’s blessing. Ditto for Spain.