For Europe, this is the pivotal week in which sweeping new rules will be introduced to overhaul the way that governments manage their finances. The idea — through a combination of better auditing and tougher penalties — is to prevent EU member states from ever again piling up the weighty debt loads that caused Greece to buckle and are now testing Ireland, Portugal and Spain.

But in Brussels, the week is playing out more as a cross-town institutional showdown. On one side is the European Commission, led by José Manuel Barroso, which on Wednesday will present its legislative proposals to improve economic governance. On the other is the European Council, led by Herman Van Rompuy, who is leading his own task force on the matter. Although the two men steadfastly deny any rivalry, it seemed ordained from the moment the Lisbon treaty established Mr Van Rompuy as the Council’s first permanent president, setting him up in his own headquarters just across the street from Mr Barroso.

Lisbon, which came into force in December, was supposed to streamline the EU’s decision-making and make an unwieldy bureaucracy coherent. Yet the wrestling match over economic governance suggests that there is still more work to be done. In what has widely been interpreted as a bureaucratic elbow to the Commission, Mr Van Rompuy decided to move up his most recent task force meeting to this evening, during which he is expected to present his recommendations.