European leaders should pay tribute to the last commissioner working in Brussels. Competition watchdog Neelie Kroes is the only member of the European Commission still at her desk, after she was given a two-month extension till the end of the year to finish inquiries into government-funded bank aid. She’s making good use of the extra time. For all the Brussels-bashing of recent years, Kroes is also doing a service to member states, which originally weren’t keen on maintaining even basic competition rules at the peak of the crisis.

Banks have been getting a dose of tough love. Kroes exerted her authority by forcing a faster and more radical restructuring of the Dutch ING, which is splitting banking and insurance. She’s also reshaping British banking from big – Royal Bank of Scotland – to small – Northern Rock. The UK landscape for years to come will bear the mark of her insistence that consumers not be forgotten under the pretext of financial emergency.

Kroes was right at the onset when she decided that any ruling on bank bailouts should distinguish good aid from bad. The former was needed to help sound banks weather a crisis they didn’t cause. The latter was public money used to help provide a lifeline to those that would have otherwise gone under, or skew competition in favour of larger survivors.

The commissioner’s efforts were understandably unpopular – with financial institutions and national authorities alike. But governments relented over time. They came to understand the EU could help keep a reeling banking sector from shrinking into an oligopoly. There may be some disagreement about the details of the carving, but no mistaking the force and precision of the knife.

Kroes would like to keep her job in the new Commission, which is to start from January. She should.

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