IT WAS billed as a dramatic showdown between the French miscreants and the European Union’s enforcers. But in the end the clash never came. On October 29th the European Commission decided not to request revisions to France’s budget for 2015, despite its clear breach of the euro zone’s deficit rules, after the French government offered enough last-minute concessions.France had set itself up for a collision in September, when President François Hollande’s government unveiled its growth forecast. This showed that the country would fail to cut its budget deficit, as it had promised, to 3.8% of GDP this year and 3% next. Instead, the deficit would rise to 4.4% in 2014, before dropping back to 4.3% next year. France, announced Michel Sapin, the finance minister, would not reach the euro zone’s 3% ceiling, originally promised by 2013, until 2017.This created predictable exasperation in Brussels, which had already given France an earlier two-year delay to reach the 3% target. It also enraged smaller euro-zone countries that have been forced to impose severe budget cuts in far more difficult circumstances. And it was all the more grating because of French high-handedness. “France must be respected, it is a big country,” declared Manuel Valls, the prime minister. “We are the ones who decide on our budget.”Amid rising frustration with France, Jyrki Katainen, the outgoing economics…
The Economist: Europe
