Brussels: The European Union expects France to take "credible measures" to reduce its budget deficit to EU limits, a spokesman said on Wednesday after Paris warned it would miss its 2015 target by a wide margin.
France is due to submit a draft 2015 budget for review in Brussels next month, and this "should clearly specify credible measures," a European Commission spokesman said.
These measures should "deliver the ambitious expenditure reductions planned for 2015 and thereafter."
This raises the pressure on France, just hours after German Chancellor Angela Merkel, praising Germany`s strong budget position, urged other EU countries "finally" to respect the budget deficit rules.
And last week the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, also stressed that eurozone governments must press ahead with reforms to obtain growth and not count on low interest rates instead.
French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said earlier that France would miss its budget target by two years, with 2017 now set when the deficit should be back below the EU limit of 3.0 percent of annual economic output.
France had promised Brussels it would hit 3.0 percent next year but Sapin said the deficit in 2015 would instead come in at 4.3 percent, only a fractional improvement on this year`s 4.4 percent.
France has already twice asked for more time to get its deficit -- the shortfall between government spending and revenues -- into line with EU limits.
Commission economic affairs spokesman Simon O`Connor said Brussels welcomed Sapin`s restated commitment to proceed with structural reforms to put the struggling French economy back on track.
"The adoption and swift implementation of bold reforms that create a solid basis for sustainable growth and job creation, built on sound public finances, are essential not only for France but for the euro area as a whole."
With the budget deficit targets way out of line with what was agreed in 2013, however, the Commission will review the position closely to see if France has made progress on its "required structural adjustment," O`Connor said.
Sapin`s comments came just before Brussels announced that former French finance minister Pierre Moscovici would take up the key economic affairs portfolio in the new European Commission, the EU`s executive arm.
Moscovici said after the appointment that his job would be to "apply the (EU) rules" as they were, without fear or favour and irregardless of his nationality.
Paris along with Rome has been pressing the EU to ease the rules on the public finances so as to allow greater leeway to governments desperate to boost economic growth and create jobs.
