The European Commission began formal disciplinary procedures against Portugal and Spain last week over excessive deficits in 2014 and 2015, and EU finance ministers will make a decision based on the executive’s recommendation at a meeting on Tuesday.
 
Mr. Sapin, who did not voice his stance on Spain as well, said the European Commission was entitled to launch the procedure.
 
However Mr. Sapin was very clear on Portugal. “Portugal doesn’t deserve to have exaggerated discipline imposed” he told a news conference. “One cannot say Portugal hasn’t made all the appropriate efforts”.
 
EU budget penalties have never yet been enforced and it is unclear whether they will be imposed this time, especially in the Brexit aftermath. France itself has repeatedly benefited from EU leniency over its own breaches of the bloc’s public finances rules.
 
However, other member states, such as Germany, call for stricter implementation of EU rules. The Slovak Finance Minister said last week that “we can't have double standards in Europe”.
 
“For Spain, the difficulty we have is to know who we’re talking to” Mr. Sapin said referring to the political deadlock the country is in due to the inability of Spanish political parties to form a government. He declined to comment on the issue of budget sanctions for that country.
 
But Mr. Sapin had said at the end of May that Eurozone finance ministers were “not inclined” to sanction Spain, and that there was goodwill from France on this point.
 
Last week, Luis de Guindos, Spain’s Finance minister, said his country should escape disciplinary action as well. “Proceedings for a potential sanction were opened, but I am convinced this sanction will not happen because Spain is the fastest-growing economy in the eurozone and it has passed more reforms than anybody else. It would be nonsense” Mr. De Guindos told journalists in Madrid on Thursday.
 
The Commission’s decision to open a disciplinary procedure has the potential to ignite controversy over the fair application of EU rules, its President Jean-Claude Juncker having said in May that France was granted budget leeway because “it’s France”, attracting criticism.