The European Commission should be able to veto national budgets if they breach the European Union's common fiscal rules, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Friday.
The comments come amid tensions between Berlin, which insists on fiscal discipline, and Paris, which has been running a budget deficit for several years.
"Since not everybody in Europe has fully internalized yet that it makes sense to abide by the rules, I am in favor of giving the new EU Economic Affairs Commissioner the right to veto irregular draft budgets of member states," Schaeuble said in a speech in Berlin, without naming any particular country.
European Commission recommendations on national budgets should be binding, Schaeuble said, adding that the euro zone needed to show it was united in its determination to improve its fiscal governance.
The EU Commission is assessing draft national budgets of the euro zone countries under powers it gained last year to ensure that draft plans are in line with EU agreements.
On Friday, Brussels postponed until March its decisions on whether the 2015 budgets of France, Italy and Belgium break EU rules, saying it needed more information to be sure.
France has angered the Commission and its euro zone partners because in June 2013 EU finance ministers gave it two extra years to bring its budget deficit below the ceiling of 3 percent of gross domestic product.
But Paris later said it would miss the 2015 deadline and needs until 2017 to comply.
If the Commission decides Paris did not take action to meet the targets set by the ministers, it could face a fine of up to 4.2 billion euros.
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