Editorial Board
The EU's Broken Budget Rules Need Changing
It's clear the union is not going to enforce its rules. It should scrap them.
Time to clean up the rule book.
Photographer: Marcel Van Hoorn/AFP/Getty ImagesRules are there to be broken -- and that's official. Spain and Portugal have just escaped punishment for breaking the European Union's budget-deficit limits.
In the EU, such lapses without consequences are not exactly uncommon. In the case of the budget rules, that's a good thing, because the rules are widely acknowledged to be no good. But here's a radical thought: Bad rules that nobody has any intention of enforcing would be better scrapped.