Britain and France on path to EU budget penalty procedure

While budgetary discipline in most of the European Union's member states significantly improved over the past year, the UK and France - the bloc's economic heavy-weights - are expected to breach the public deficit rules by next year.

Joaquin Almunia, the EU's economy commissioner, told reporters on Monday (28 April) that he will in June propose the launch of a disciplinary procedure against Britain for accumulating a higher budgetary deficit than the three percent of GDP threshold.