A light knuckle dusting

Gordon Brown, the chancellor and the current president of the EU's council of finance ministers, today faced a reprimand from the EU commission for breaching the EU's budget deficit limits.

Although Britain is not part of the eurozone, all EU countries are supposed to follow the EU's notorious and now discredited stability and growth pact. The pact's lynchpin says budget deficits should not exceed 3% of gross domestic product.

For the second year running, the UK will breach that limit, hence the rap over the knuckles. The EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, reported to fellow commissioners that according to provisional estimates the UK's budget deficit would run at 3.1% of GDP for 2004-05 and was likely to remain just above the 3% limit in 2005-6 and 2006-7.

But Brown can be forgiven for believing that the EU has some cheek to tell him off.