EU to investigate Germany’s policies

The EU is to investigate Germany’s economic policies, including its massive export surplus, with Berlin warned that it had better co-operate or risk undermining the credibility of the economic oversight it fought so hard to impose.

A European Parliament report shows that over the past two years France and Germany — the two big eurozone countries — implemented only 3% and 9% respectively of Commission recommendations in 2011 and 2012, despite them being backed by EU finance ministers.

Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso outlining the top five priorities to guide member states’ budgets this year said the EU was reaching a turning point and was entering a recovery phrase.