SINCE the euro crisis started in early 2010, the debtor nations on the periphery of Europe have become used to strictures from Germany, not least for running big balance-of-payments deficits. On November 13th, for once, it was Germany’s turn to face a possible ticking-off. For the first time since more stringent rules and oversight were put in place to try to avert future crises, the euro area’s unofficial leader, hub economy and chief creditor is to be investigated. Its misdemeanour? Running too big a current-account surplus. The ruling came from the European Commission, which since 2012 has been keeping watch for a renewed build-up of the economic imbalances that proved so destabilising in the crisis. The commission marks the 28 countries in the union (of which 17 share the euro) according to a scorecard of 11 indicators, ranging from current-account imbalances to export performance and private-debt burdens. It sounds the alert if, for example, a country runs a deficit above 4% of GDP on average for three years; or if it runs a surplus exceeding 6% of GDP—as with Germany, whose surplus averaged 6.5% in 2010-12.

The commission will now conduct an “in-depth review” of the German economy, which will be published next spring. Being subjected to a review may be a first for Germany, but it will be one of 16 countries in the union receiving similar investigations (which are not carried out for those in full bail-out programmes). Until now only two—Spain and Slovenia—have been found to have “excessive imbalances”.

Germany seems likely to escape such a verdict. Though its overall surplus is high, its surplus with other euro-zone countries has fallen sharply since its peak in 2007 (see chart). On November 13th José Manuel Barroso, the commission’s president, struck a conciliatory note, but suggested that Germany could do more to support domestic demand, which would boost imports, by opening up its services sector.

The commission’s decision has made many Germans indignant but that is because, wrongly, they regard their surplus as a sign of their exporting virility. In fact, much of the surplus reflects weakness—the consequence of feeble domestic investment. Germans would gain from rectifying this, for example through a much-needed boost to public infrastructure, which has been neglected, and a dose of deregulation to spur private investment.

The focus on Germany’s surplus in any case misses a larger defect in the euro zone’s plethora of reforms. These may have been dubbed the “six-pack” and the “two-pack” (referring to the number of new laws), but they were less muscular than they sounded. They have created a system of surveillance and co-ordination that is both cumbersome and complicated.

The reforming efforts have concentrated especially on public finances. They focus more attention on public debt, which had previously been virtually ignored. They make sanctions easier to enforce by reversing the usual voting process in the European Council: instead of a qualified majority (which gives countries with big populations more votes than those with small ones) being required to impose them, one is needed to block them. And they increase central scrutiny, a process enhanced by the recently introduced “two-pack”. That has meant, for example, that countries in the euro zone have had to submit their draft budgets for 2014 this autumn; the commission was due on November 15th to give its opinion on them.

Despite these changes, the euro area lacks a common budget and a single finance minister to give economic and budgetary direction. And, even before the recent skirmish between Brussels and Berlin, the German government had little confidence in the ability of the commission to police the public finances. That is why it insisted two years ago on the fiscal compact, a treaty obliging countries to write stern budgetary discipline into their national laws. The euro zone’s economic governance remains a half-built house, with more than one architect at work.