Germany agrees to fix deficit by 2013: minister
(BRUSSELS) - Germany will adhere to a European Commission demand to fix its public deficit by 2013, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Tuesday.
"Reducing the deficits between 2011 and 2013 corresponds exactly to our ideas," he said on arrival for a meeting of European Union counterparts in Brussels.
The commission, the EU's budgetary watchdog, launched an excessive deficit procedure against Germany for the first time in April, and is set to announce a deadline of 2013 on Wednesday for it to return to fiscal probity.
Berlin anticipates a deficit of 3.7 percent of gross domestic product this year, and said in July it expected that to rise to six percent in 2010 -- double the bloc's stated target.
It had already announced plans to wind it back to five percent in 2011 and four percent in 2012 before hitting the magic line the following year.
Commission forecasts were higher, but these took account of tax cuts announced by Chancellor Angela Merkel's new government after her September election victory.
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