Acting on an official request from the Ecofin Council, the European Commission is expected to bring forward proposals on Wednesday 27 July leading to fines on Spain and Portugal for their failure to remain on their set budgetary trajectories between 2013 and 2015. A move such as this could prove to be counter-productive insofar as Madrid and Lisbon could, if they face disproportionately high penalties, have greater difficulty in respecting their new budgetary trajectories and find themselves...