European Commission has ordered Greece to slash public spending

[Skandi]

The European Commission has ordered Greece to slash public spending and spell out details of its austerity plan within "one month", invoking sweeping new EU Treaty powers to impose a radical shake-up of the Greek economy....

....Brussels invoked new EU powers under Article 121 of the Lisbon Treaty, allowing it to reshape the structure of pensions, healthcare, labour markets and private commerce – a step-change in the level of EU intrusion.
more (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7150118/Greece-under-EU-protectorate-as-funds-shift-fire-to-Portugal.html)

Didn't take them long did it, wake up world and smell the roses.

[The Lawspeaker]

Yap. We all could have seen this one coming: Greece was living above it's means and it's lack of thrift was endangering the security of the Euro.
That's what you get when you have a unitary currency and a power-hungry Brussels.

[Skandi]

Yap. We all could have seen this one coming: Greece was living above it's means and it's lack of thrift was endangering the security of the Euro.
That's what you get when you have a unitary currency and a power-hungry Brussels.

Not quite what I was thinking more the control from Brussels, if you read the whole article it says that Spain is probably next, if the populations don't put up with this, and why should they, then it could get very interesting for the euro.

[The Lawspeaker]

Well. Off the top of my head I would say that a lot of countries have been spending more then they were allowed to under the Stability and Growth Pact. * **

Which indicates that a country can have an annual budget deficit no higher than 3% of GDP (this includes the sum of all public budgets, including municipalities, regions, etc)and a national debt lower than 60% of GDP or approaching that value.

I think that this crisis shows the futility of the SGP and of the Euro as a whole (and actually of the entire European Union).

* Greece, Spain, France, the Netherlands and some former Eastern Bock-countries

** United Kingdom - not part of the Eurozone/ SGP

[Groenewolf]

Besides that the spending limit got ignored when everyone learned that the bigger countries where not going to follow it. And now with greater power for the civic workers of the EU Greece is the first feeling the new found teeth of the European bureaucracy.

I think there are now a lot of politicians feeling sorry about approving this treaty. Even more since there are many more of them then there are EU political jobs available.