MEPs WANT THEIR DAY IN COURT OVER DEFICITS

Liberal MEPs are threatening to take the European commission to court for letting France and Germany off the hook last month over their consistent breaches of the 3% budget deficit ceiling laid down by the EU's stability and growth pact.

The 88-strong bloc, armed with advice from a law professor, wants the European court of justice to declare the commission's decision to suspend infraction proceedings - including possible fines of up to €10bn (£7bn) - null and void.

France and Germany, which had been spared the ignominy of proceedings and sanctions by the council of ministers in 2003, pledged to cut their deficits to 3% or lower this year.

But most Liberal MEPs - backed by some in the centre-right EPP group, the parliament's biggest - want to force the commission to reinstitute proceedings against both countries. Professor Bernhard Kempen, of Cologne university, told Liberals in a 12-page report that a case would be "allowable and well-founded" because the EU's executive body had itself broken the law by giving France and Germany too long to bring their deficits under control. He argued that sanctions should have been imposed in late 2003.

You know, the last time I posed this question it was ignored by Idiot and the rest of the Frogophiles. So I will pose it again.

Please tell me which is worse: Countries committing to treaties and then making zero effort to live up to it claiming national needs supersede the treaty. (Frog and Germany and EU budget targets) Or countries never agreeing to the treaties because of national needs. (The US and Kyoto.)