Greece's goal of reducing its gargantuan debt received a fresh blow today when the EU statistics agency announced that the country's 2009 budget deficit was much worse than first thought.

Six months after Athens received €110bn (£93bn) in emergency loans from EU nations and the International Monetary Fund to prop up its near-bankrupt economy, Eurostat revealed that Greece's budget deficit reached 15.4% of GDP last year, substantially higher than its previous estimate of 13.6%.