Quote Originally Posted by Fragony View Post
Do you know who also negotiated
At the European Council? There's the President of the Council (Van Rompuy), President of the Commision (Barroso) and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs (Ashton)

Basically the only one with explicite executive powers there is Barroso, and if he doesn't have the support of either the major member-states (Merkel and Sarkozy were opposed to a number of measures Barroso proposed and wanted to implement during the onset of the crisis) or a large collection of the smaller and medium member-states (All of them which are divided on what to do) to throw his weight around, then he has no consensus support to negotiate anything and stand up to Merkel or Sarkozy/Hollande. If he has no support in those meetings, then he must be forced to accept whatever deliberations come out of those meetings and act on them. Same thing for Van Rompuy and Ashton.