Free Republic

Germany’s EU Commissioner Günther Öttinger said in a newspaper interview Monday that Spain and Portugal should be fined by Brussels for missing their 2015 deficit targets. “Neither country met the budget commitments that they had both set themselves,” Öttinger told the mass-circulation daily Bild. “I believe that if the EU Commission is to maintain its credibility regarding the budget rules, then we will have to impose sanctions on Spain and Portugal,” he continued. […] On Friday, another EU Commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, had suggested that Brussels could freeze the structural funding for the two countries. …