EU Crisis Spring 1999 was supposed to be the European Union's finest hour, as its Economic and Monetary Union finally got underway. Instead, the union was thrown into turmoil. After a scathing report suggesting corruption and mismanagement in the European Commission, all 20 commissioners were forced to step down. At the same time negotiations to reform the EU budget were deadlocked, jeopardizing ambitious plans to take in new members from Eastern Europe. It took a meeting of the EU heads of state and government at the Berlin summit on 24-25 March to resolve the crisis. EU Budget breakthrough After 20 hours of non-stop negotiations at the Berlin summit, EU leaders agree on budge