UK, EU to see massive spending cuts

Clinton: Defense cutting could endanger the NATO military alliance

BRUSSELS / LONDON - The European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) approved tightened fiscal spending targets for 2011 which are expected to help lower the level of public debt while at the same time boosting economic growth.

The British government is braced for an uproar but British Finance Minister George Osborne said he had no choice given the need to cut a record budget deficit of 11 percent of the GDP - the highest in the G7 - to around 2 percent in 5 years, a fiscal tightening of some 113 billion pounds ($178 billion), a quarter of which will come from tax increases.