BRUSSELS, Belgium - The EU statistics agency Eurostat warned Monday that it would have to carefully check Greece's 2005 budget figures that claim the country's GDP is a quarter larger than earlier estimates.

This compounds the problems the EU has with Greece's budget calculations after it identified "systemic" issues with the way Athens counts its public spending.

Eurostat published its final budget deficit figures for all other EU nations, confirming that Hungary had the European Union's largest budget deficit last year, at 6.5 percent of gross domestic product. Portugal clocked up a deficit of 6 percent, Italy 4.1 percent and the Czech Republic 3.6 percent, it said.

Eurostat said new information Athens handed over on Oct. 1 would need "complete verification" to check if Greece was right to revise its economic statistics so radically.

"Given the magnitude and complexity of the revised GDP data ... Eurostat will carry out a complete verification of GDP data once Greece has delivered a full inventory of the sources and methods used for the new calculations," it said.

It will also send Greece an action plan for how it can improve finance statistics in the future, it said.

Using data from April, Eurostat said Greece had a deficit of 5.2 percent, warning that it was still discussing a raft of other issues on the way the government had counted pension, roads and sales payments as well as securitization, an accounting move that would allow Greece cut its 2005 deficit by counting euro1.5 billion (US$1.76 billion) of uncollected tax debt.

Greece had hoped that these measures and two years of an austerity package would help bring it closer to the 3 percent limit set by EU budget rules. It plans to bring the deficit down to 2.6 percent this year and 2.4 percent in 2007.

But Eurostat's criticisms of Athens' bad bookkeeping come after it sent experts to Greece to tackle wide problems with accounting. Last year it revised Greece's 2004 deficit upward to 6.9 percent, inflated by government spending on the Athens Olympics.

Europe's largest economy, Germany, came in with a deficit of 3.2 percent, just above a 3 percent limit set by EU budget rules. Britain was 3.3 percent for 2005, it said.

All 25 EU nations are asked to stick to a maximum 3 percent deficit limit to keep their economies stable. This is an obligation for the 12 countries that use the euro.

Hungary's deficit is expected to balloon to at least 10.1 percent of GDP this year and 6.8 percent in 2007. Budapest is planning a raft of austerity measures to cut its debt under threat that the EU could withdraw billions in EU development funding.

Protests demanding Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's dismissal were held in September, when a recording was leaked of him admitting that the government lied about the economy to win re-election in April.

Eurostat said 15 nations had improved their budget deficits last year compared to 2004 but nine worsened.

Overall, euro-zone public debt rose to euro7.999 trillion (US$10.093 trillion) last year — up from euro7.748 trillion (US$9.776 trillion) the previous year.

The euro area's debt to GDP ratio didn't stick to the EU's 60 percent ceiling. The 12 euro nations reported an increase to 70.8 percent debt to GDP, up from 69.8 percent in 2004.

However, the euro area's total budget deficit — which compares current lending to borrowing — slipped to 2.4 percent from 2.8 percent in 2004.

For the entire EU, government debt was euro10.875 trillion (US$13.722 trillion), up from euro10.478 trillion (US$13.221 trillion). The budget deficit fell to 2.4 percent from 2.7 percent the previous year.

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