European Commission is in danger of losing its authority

Failure to impose fiscal rules means the new European Commission is in danger of losing its authority, writes Daniel Gros

THE new European Commission headed by Jean-Claude Juncker is off to a rocky start.

However, one would not know it from reading the headlines. As Sherlock Holmes understood, a dog that does not bark in the nighttime usually goes unnoticed. In Europe’s case, the European Union’s fiscal rules are at issue, and the commission — in principle, the EU’s watchdog — should bark loudly when they are flouted.