The European Commission yesterday asked three more member states to reduce their deficits below the three-per cent ceiling set by the bloc's budget rules.

The Commission said that Cyprus, Denmark and Finland ran excessive deficits and recommended different deadlines for the three countries to bring their deficits and debt levels down according to the EU's Stability and Growth Pact.

The addition of these three member states to the excessive deficit procedure brings the total number of member states which need to correct the state of their public finances up to 25, including Malta.

Malta's deficit shot up to almost 4.8 per cent of GDP in 2008 and last year was put under an EDP and given until 2011 to rein in its deficit.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn said the entry into the excessive deficit procedure of Cyprus, Denmark and Finland, which until recently had surpluses in their budget, shows the severity of the economic and financial crisis the EU has gone through.

Mr Rehn said that deterioration of the public finances of these countries were partly due to the stimulus measures taken to fight the economic crisis, but now it was time to "focus on returning to sound public finances".

Due to stimulus packages carried out across the 27 member states during the economic crisis, many EU member states are running excessive public deficits or public debt. Also, the Greek debt crisis, which is in danger of spreading to other EU member states, has prompted the EU to implement more strictly, the budget rules.

While clearing the deficit targets of many member states put under EDP this year, including those of France, Germany and Italy, Mr Rehn said that more should be done by Spain and Portugal - two countries with high deficits and which are already under the spotlight for a possible fall-out similar to the recent Greek crisis.

According to Mr Rehn, Spain must introduce extra measures in its 2011 budget if it is to restore its public deficit to the EU limit of three per cent of GDP by a 2013 target.

"For 2011, Spain will need to specify concrete measures of about 1.75 per cent of GDP to reach the deficit target of six per cent in 2011," he said.

So far Spain's deficit busting measures for next year only amount to one per cent of output, according to Mr Rehn.

"Extra measures need to be specified in the 2011 budget," he stressed.

At the same time, 10 member states were given the all-clear under existing austerity drives including France, Germany and Italy, which have all recently announced new cuts of their own, as well as Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Portugal, for its part, has pledged to cut its public deficit this year to 7.3 per cent, rather than 8.3 per cent as initially planned. However, the Commission said that "further corrective measures should be included," next year.

The UK should have been the 13th EU member state to come up for inspection but with the new government having slated an emergency budget for June 22, its review was put on hold.