BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — The European Commission gave Spain and Portugal additional time to put their budgets in order, extending deadline to correct excessive deficits, European Commissioner for Economic and Finance Pierre Moscovici said Wednesday.
"Spain and Portugal: new deadlines to correct excessive deficits while delivering demanding but realistic structural effort," Moscovici wrote on his Twitter.
The European Union budgetary rules stipulate that the national budget deficits should remain under 3 percent of GDP.
Spain is expected to reduce its deficit from 5.1 percent in 2015 to 2.5 percent in 2017, while Portugal has to reduce the deficit from 4.2 percent to 2.3 percent by the end of 2016, as the previous extension expired in December.
