EU commissioner calls time on Greek deficit

(ATHENS) - Joaquin Almunia, the European Commissioner for economic and financial affairs, on Sunday demanded that Greece slash its budget deficit, in an interview with Eleftherotypia newspaper.

"I will not stop repeating that Greece is obliged to adopt severe and rigorous measures to stop the systematic derailment of its budget," he told the paper.

"I am saying clearly that there are weaknesses, in the first place in control of public spending. That has to stop once and for all," he added.

In April, the European Union launched disciplinary action against Greece because it had allowed its deficits to rise past an EU limit -- as it also did against France, Ireland and Spain.

It was the second such EU measure against Greece in five years.

Brussels wants the government to bring back its deficit below three percent of GDP by 2010, compared to the five percent the EU said it had registered in 2008.

Athens estimated its public debt to be at 93.1 percent of GDP in 2008 and at 96.3 percent in 2009 -- among the highest in the eurozone.

Greece's Finance and Economy Minister Yannis Papathanassiou, in an interview with another newspaper, To Vima, made it clear he understood the seriousness of the situation.

"The lies are over: either we reduce the defict and the debt or we all go under together," he said.

"There are no magic formulae," the minister added: "Either we lower spending or we increase income, or both."

At the end of the month the conservative government would look at the situation and decide on what additional measures it needed to take, he added.