The British government has rejected calls by the European Commission for it to do more to cut its ballooning budget deficit in the medium term, saying such action would damage public services.
"We think the EU has got the judgment wrong," Treasury chief Secretary Liam Byrne told BBC radio.
"We think the plan that they've set out would require us to take something like 20 billion pounds ($30 billion) more out of the economy by 2014-15 and we think that would do irreparable damage to public services or to taxpayers."
Mr Byrne was responding to a draft from the EU executive obtained by Reuters which said Britain's fiscal programme failed to guarantee it would meet an EU deadline of 2014-15 for cutting the deficit to below the bloc's cap of 3 per cent of economic output.
Cutting Britain's record budget deficit will be a crucial issue in the upcoming election expected in May, with the ruling Labour government trailing the opposition Conservatives in opinion polls.
Britain's plan envisages cutting the gap to 4.7 per cent of gross domestic product in the fiscal year 2014-15 from 12.1 per cent planned for 2010-2011. That means it will fail to meet a deadline given by EU finance ministers late last year.
Ruling Labour, in power since 1997, wants to put off cuts until a fragile economic recovery is assured.
The government is expected to detail further plans to deal with the deficit in a budget on March 24th.
The Conservatives, whose lead in the polls has slipped in recent weeks, seized on the EU report. They have promised to take quicker action on tackling the deficit than either the Labour government or the Liberal Democrat party and have warned that Britain's triple-A credit rating was under threat because of government profligacy.
"What has to be done now is to get this debt rapidly under control and get the bulk of the structural deficit, get rid of it during the next parliament and I also think one needs to start now," said Conservative business spokesman Ken Clarke.
"It's necessary to get rid of the structural deficit because if you don't so that interest rates will go up, we won't have any economic recovery, you will have rising unemployment," he told the same radio programme.
Mr Byrne said such spending cuts would be a disaster for public services.
"You would have to take £20 billion of public spending out by 2014-15, that's about half the education budget. We think that halving the deficit over four years is the right approach," he said.
"We think that is not reckless. It's not painless either."