Battle lines being drawn at summit

• Email
• Print
• Comments (0)

European leaders were drawing battle lines yesterday as they headed for a summit in Brussels, with France pushing back against Germany's call for a new EU czar with wide powers to veto countries' budgets.

In an address to Parliament ahead of the meeting, German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed a proposal for the EU's monetary affairs commissioner to become an enforcer of the bloc's budget rules - including the power to refuse member countries' proposed budgets and send them back for changes.

Germany hopes that having a ''budget czar'' will keep governments from overspending and needing new, expensive bailouts. But some countries, like France, are wary of handing control over their finances to unelected bureaucrats in a foreign capital.