The European Commission is near to deciding whether to mount a legal challenge to a decision by the EU's finance ministers to freeze the bloc's budget discipline rules for France and Germany, officials said yesterday.
The European Union executive has asked for advice from its legal services on whether such a challenge could be mounted in the European Court of Justice after what it saw as a severe blow to the credibility of its budget policing process.
"We are working on it. We will have a discussion tomorrow in the Commission and in a week's time we shall take a decision," Commission President Mr Romano Prodi said last night.
He added later that it would be above all a political rather than a legal decision.
EU officials said the Commission's lawyers were unlikely to give a black-and-white answer, but their opinion was expected to provide a basis for a court challenge if the 20-member EU executive wanted to initiate a challenge.
Finance ministers decided in November to suspend the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact to spare economic heavyweights France and Germany from disciplinary action that can eventually lead to huge fines. - (Reuters)
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