Barroso backs Greek plan against 'excessive' debt

(BRUSSELS) - Greece's swelling public deficit is excessively high and "must be decisively corrected," EU commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said Tuesday, while accepting Athens' programme to tackle it.

"The huge Greek government deficit for 2009 came (as) a surprise to us all. Such deficit results from a combination of budgetary slippage with statistical misreporting," Barroso said.

"A deficit of such a magnitude must be decisively corrected. Moreover the government debt in Greece is excessively high," he added.

Barroso was talking the day before the European Commission pronounces on the remedial programme Greece has submitted to solve the crisis which he said was "not only important for Greece but for the euro area and the EU as a whole."

Greece is struggling under a massive debt of over 294 billion euros (412 billion dollars), a runaway public deficit estimated at 12.7 percent of output, a triple downgrade of its sovereign debt ratings and doubts over dodgy data.

Athens handed Brussels in mid-January its plans to reduce the deficit to 8.7 percent of GDP this year and then under the EU's three percent bar in 2012 via a series of austerity measures and efficiencies.

On Monday, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou vowed to do "everything necessary" to pull the eurozone member out of a fiscal hole that has hurt its standing on the financial markets.

He has outlined sweeping public sector cuts to bring Greece's deficit into line with eurozone requirements by 2013.

These proposals include major curbs on public sector hiring and pay, a 10-percent cut in social security and "a significant reduction in military expenditures".

Barroso agreed that "Greece is determined to correct her very excessive deficit."

The envisaged Greek programme "is feasible but subject to risks. Provided such risks will not be allowed to materialise through the timely implementation of corrective measures the deficit will indeed be corrected," he said.

"We believe this will be done," therefore the commission will recommend that EU member states endorse the Greek plans, though under "intense surveillance," he added.

In Athens, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was "confident" and "optimistic" about the Greek debt plan after talks with Papandreou.