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The European Commission has been given broad powers to monitor the economic reforms of member states and to demand corrective action if necessary. An early glimpse into how the new Commission intends to use these powers will be offered at a meeting of the economic affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici with MEPs on 2 December. Mr Moscovici will present the Commission’s view on the budget plans of eurozone countries for 2015. Watch it live from 10:00 CET.

The meeting in the economic affairs committee will give MEPs the opportunity to discuss how the Commission sees the efforts of individual eurozone countries to hold their budget balances and debt under control. Budget deficits have been decreasing in recent years but the euro zone average is still forecast to be 2.6% in 2014, close to the 3% threshold generally indicating excessive deficit. Debt-to-GDP ratios have been rising in most countries due to both sizable deficits and weak growth.

Under the "two-pack" rules on economic governance, introduced by EU governments and the European Parliament in 2013, euro area member states have until 15 October to publish their draft budgets for the following year. The Commission must then give an opinion on the draft budgets and may propose corrective actions, which then can be adopted by the governments in the Council.

Earlier on Tuesday morning, Mr Moscovici will appear together with fellow commissioners Valdis Dombrovskis and Marianne Thyssen at a joint meeting of the economic affairs and employment committees. They will discuss the general economic priorities of the EU set out in the Commission’s Annual Growth Survey, and the macroeconomic imbalances as identified in the Alert Mechanism Report.