McCreevy to save Europe?

The Economist outlines Charlie ‘bundled to Brussels’ McCreevy’s plan for simplifying financial services in the EU.

The former Irish finance minister, now the EU’s internal-market commissioner, is regarded as both a sensible champion of capitalism and a bureaucrat who has slowed the march towards a single market. But he is also seen as an enforcer who roughs up member states that don’t toe his line—pity his spokesman, who says, only half in jest, that Mr McCreevy wants to make him the least popular man in Brussels.

The sensible McCreevy is likely to be on display in a new financial-services plan for the next five years, due to be laid out by the European Commission on December 5th. The “White Paper” is sparing in its new proposals—a relief to financial firms groaning under a glut of past initiatives from the Brussels rule factory. In return, McCreevy the enforcer has undertaken to see through the huge volume of reforms already on the books. Being frugal with the new rules helps him to be adamant about the old.

Simplifying things can only be a good thing, can’t it?