Germany and France laid out differing visions for the future of the European economy Monday (17 January), signalling a fight later this year to overhaul the bloc’s strict rules on government spending. The EU wants to simplify the decades old regulations on running national budgets, and the positions taken by the eurozone’s top two economies will drive the debate. The rules force members of the eurozone to cooperate when drawing up their spending plans, an exercise that gained importance after the debt crisis of 2010-15, which nearly sank the single currency. Berlin’s new finance minister, Christian Lindner, was ... (full story)