EU commissioner takes one last hit

LUXEMBOURG, June 22 (AFP) :  To Olli Rehn, the EU's low-key but hardline economics affairs commissioner, another push against austerity could not have come as much of a surprise.

Rehn, who steps down at the end of the month, has spent five years as the EU's designated figurehead for all things austerity, hailed in several northern states as an enforcer of sound public finances, but loathed in the crisis-hit south as a driver of mass unemployment and recession.

Conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel swiftly and flatly dismissed the idea by her coalition partner, but the message was out and the austerity-versus-growth debate thrust open once more.