The European Union's executive arm, the guardian of EU budget rules, today welcomed the Budget's austerity measures aimed at containing the country's ballooning deficit amid an economic crisis.
'The Commission's preliminary assessment is that decisive, broad-based action has been taken in this supplementary budget,' a Commission spokesman told a regular briefing.
'We welcome the confirmation of the deficit of no more that 3% of GDP by 2013,' he said of promises made by the Finance Minister yesterday.
The Commission also said that plans to create an agency that would deal with impaired assets on banks' balance sheets followed consultations with the Commission.
