The Greek crisis has presented Brussels with a problem, but also an opportunity. AP has some details:

[President of the EU council Herman] Van Rompuy is drawing up a blueprint for the way European countries manage their economic affairs, proposing that the EU get involved in planning national policies and ensuring they are carried out. Governments are unlikely to yield power easily to a central authority, and rejections of a proposed EU constitution by French and Dutch voters in 2005 showed popular suspicion of the EU — as did a 2008 No vote by Ireland to a scaled down version, the Lisbon Treaty, which was reversed in a second vote last year and then entered into force on Jan. 1. Still, Van Rompuy apparently believes a window for major reform has been opened by the Greek debt crisis, which has undermined the euro and has shown up the EU’s inability to coordinate government spending among the 16 countries sharing the same currency…
…Nicolas Veron of the Bruegel Institute, a Brussels-based economic think-tank, says the Greek problem has raised issues of trading sovereignty for greater stability, and believes the euro countries are likely to consider greater integration. “The more crises you have, the more you will have moments where you will have tradeoff of sovereignty,” he said. But Sarah Gaskell, of Open Europe think tank, sees Van Rompuy’s move as “a power grab.” She said he was exploiting the current troubles “to push forward economic integration in a way that’s not necessarily transparent.” …In an unpublished paper distributed to governments last week, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, Van Rompuy suggests a new regime of stronger “economic governance.” Brussels would have more oversight over how member nations run their economies, going far beyond its current authority to supervise budgets. Although the ideas were vague — more details will come next month — Van Rompuy proposes that the EU draw up a set of five common economic targets, then tailor them for each country. EU experts would monitor the goals, which would be linked to EU funding and loans. Noncompliant governments may be “named and shamed,” which could affect their borrowing on bond markets…

“Not necessarily transparent”: now there’s an understatement . . .

H/t: Eursoc.