The voice of the EU commission has 'gone soft'

It was just eight years ago. In 2004, Romano Prodi, an Italian economics professor from Bologna, left one of the most powerful posts in Europe.

In his five year term as President of the European Commission, he oversaw the introduction of the euro, the enlargement of the European Union to eight countries from the former Soviet bloc and the signing of an EU constitution.

But despite the new economic governance powers granted to the EU executive during the crisis, Prodi says that t...