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布鲁塞尔—以让-克劳德·容克为首的新欧盟委员会开局不利。但从新闻中你看不到这一点。福尔摩斯知道，不在午夜乱吠的狗往往不会引起注意。在欧洲，欧盟的财政规则是问题所在，而欧盟委员会——原则上它是欧盟的看门狗——应该在问题没有得到重视时大声吠叫。
上个月，在两个欧盟大国意大利和法国上交其2015年预算计划，其政府违背继续紧缩的承诺已成定局后，谴责之声不可避免。首先，欧盟委员会忠实地拒绝了两国预算计划，因为其不符合欧盟稳定与增长公约（Stability and Growth Pact，SGP）规则。但接着发生了福尔摩斯故事中的“有趣”的事情。几天后，两国对预算做了相当于GDP的0.2%的微调，并由财政部长致书欧盟委员会表示预算现在应予通过。委员会没有对此做出反应，这使得法国和意大利领导人声称，是他们而不是布鲁塞尔官僚拥有最终决定权。
事实上，最新预测表明法国和意大利今年的表现要比最初承诺的还要糟糕，法国赤字预计将在2015年略有增加，意大利的经周期调整的赤字还将进一步恶化。增长和稳定公约规定每年的改善幅度至少要达到GDP的0.5%。
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