(BRUSSELS) - Britain's EU partners piled pressure on London Tuesday to improve its public finances, setting a deadline of the 2009-2010 budget year for cutting its deficit to EU norms, an official said.

EU finance ministers agreed at a meeting in Brussels to open formal disciplinary action against Britain for failing to do enough to rein in its budget deficit.

The European Union's executive arm already gave London a formal warning last month that the shortfall between revenues and expenditures was set to breach EU rules during the fiscal year ending March 2009.

EU member states are required to keep their public deficits to less than 3.0 percent of gross domestic output.

The EU pressure on Britain has cast a cloud over London's management of public finances under the leadership of increasingly embattled British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a former finance minister.

Figures provided by Britain in March suggested the deficit would hit 3.2 percent, while the commission has forecast 3.3 percent if London does not change its policies.

The commission warned last month that tax cuts announced in May would add further strain on the public finances, swelling the deficit to 3.5 percent.

Although Britain faces pressure from other EU countries to rein in its deficit, it does not face the prospect of fines if it does not, as countries using the euro do when they find themselves in the same situation.

Britain is a member of the European Union but not the eurozone.

In October, Britain's EU partners dropped previous disciplinary deficit action after concluding that the British government had reined in its fiscal shortfall within the European limit after breaching it in 2005.

ECOFIN Council

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