国际英语新闻：Eurozone ministers warn Greece of additional austerity measures

BRUSSELS, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Finance ministers from eurozone countries on Monday warned Greece of additional austerity measures the country might be forced to adopt next month to bring down its deficit.

The warning was issued after the monthly meeting of eurozone finance ministers.

"If we were to find that a number of risks had materialized that would prevent Greece (from) meeting the targets that it has set for itself and that we have set for them, then we would suggest additional measures," said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who chaired the finance ministers' meeting.

Greece has promised to present a report to the European Commission on March 16 about its measures taken to cut deficits. If its current debt reduction plan does not work fast enough, additional measures would have to be imposed on Greece, Juncker added.

The Luxembourg prime minister told the media that additional measures, to be adopted with a simple majority vote by eurozone finance ministers, would require Greece to further cut spending and to increase taxation for more revenues.

Greece will be excluded from the voting under the European Union (EU) rules.

Greece has promised to cut its deficit by 4 percentage points this year, after its deficit reached a staggering 12.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009. It also aims to bring the deficit to below the EU ceiling of 3 percent of GDP in 2012.

The European markets, however, have reacted nervously to Greece's capability to fulfill its promise. Fear of spreading the debt crisis into the eurozone made the euro tumble to a 9-month low against the U.S. dollar just days ago.

"Additional measures could focus on expenditure cuts, for example: cutting further current and capital expenditure including by canceling budgetary appropriations in the contingency reserve, but also include revenue-increasing measures, for example, increasing VAT revenues, establishing excise duty on luxury goods, including private cars, further increasing excise duty on energy products," Luxembourg's prime minister said.

EU leaders agreed in an informal summit last week that eurozone members will "take determined and coordinated action, if needed, to safeguard the financial stability in the eurozone as a whole." However, their pledge failed to meet the expectation of the markets and was criticized as lacking details.

It was expected that the eurozone finance ministers might spell out concrete measures to aid Greece, but Juncker refused to disclose which measures would be taken if things spin out of control in Greece.

"We do not think it would be wise to have a public discussion of such instruments," he said.

Juncker said Greece's debt crisis was "first and foremost a Greek problem and an internal Greek problem."