Britain racked up a budget deficit of 3.2 per cent of gross domestic product in 2003 to join Germany and France in breaching the European Union's deficit cap of 3 per cent, Eurostat data showed today.
Ireland reported a surplus of 0.2 per cent on the same measure and also reduced its overall debt to 32 per cent of GDP.
Although Britain ran the third biggest deficit in the EU in 2003, the European Commission is biding its time before taking any disciplinary action.
"The data reported today do not by themselves trigger an excessive deficit procedure," said Mr Gerassimos Thomas, Commission spokesman on economic and monetary affairs.
The Netherlands, one of the staunchest advocates of budget discipline, ran a deficit of 3 per cent of GDP in 2003 compared with a shortfall of 1.9 per cent of GDP in 2002, Eurostat said. The Commission also said it was not launching any disciplinary action against The Netherlands.
Budget positions worsened in 11 of the EU's 15 member states and caused the bloc's combined deficit to rise to 2.6 per cent of GDP from 2 per cent in 2002. The combined euro zone deficit rose to 2.7 per cent from 2.3 per cent.
In the 10 states joining the EU on May 1st, the highest deficit was in the Czech Republic at 12.9 per cent of GDP.
Six of the 15 EU states had debt levels above 60 per cent of GDP. Italy had the highest debt level, at 106.2 per cent of GDP.
Eurostat said the deficit and debt figures could be subject to revision as a recent ruling on the classification of funded pension schemes had not been taken into account.