Pröll wants painful sanctions for deficit sinners
Peoples Party (ÖVP) Finance Minister Josef Pröll has called for “rigid controls of, and painful sanctions for, Euro-zone deficit sinners.”Speaking before a meeting of Euro-zone finance ministers in Brussels on the Greek financial crisis today (Fri), he said that was the only way “to prevent such a situation from re-occurring.”The minister added that Austria would be a member of the task force chaired by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy which had been tasked with drawing appropriate conclusions from the crisis.Pröll said participants in the Brussels meeting should come up with “guidelines on how to prevent another such crisis.”He added the Euro-zone Stability Pact had to be changed to provide for “better economic coordination and stronger surveillance and sanctions mechanisms” no later than 2011.France and Germany have already called for more-intensive surveillance of EU member states budgetary policies.