* Budget vote reveals no will to save ahead of election
* Spending points to bigger gaps, trouble for euro entry
* Left-wing plan to hike taxes not enough
* Factbox on budget structure [ID:nGEE5B91HD]
By Jan Lopatka and Jason Hovet
PRAGUE, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Extra 2010 budget spending pushed through at the last minute by the main Czech leftist party shows a lack of will to fix the country's deteriorating budget and threatens to push euro entry further into the future.
The central European country of 10.5 million holds an election in mid-2010 and the budget approved on Wednesday shows savings are off the table for now and quite likely even further down the road if the left leads the next cabinet, a highly possible scenario according to opinion polls.
Deep budget shortfalls would mean not just more bonds and borrowing but a longer path toward the 3 percent deficit ceiling EU members must achieve to join the euro zone, currently mooted for around 2015.
But of broader concern is that the leftist Social Democrats are not showing the will to carry out vital structural reforms already completed by some others in the EU's eastern wing.
"This is a bad signal for the future of Czech public finances, because one part of the political spectrum clearly declared that it has no intention to tighten the budget," KBC bank said in a report.
Wednesday's measures will up spending on wages, farm subsidies and social care, despite stark opposition from conservatives and the country's popular interim cabinet led by independent Prime Minister Jan Fischer.
The rise is worth 12 billion crowns ($685.3 million), partially moved from other budget chapters, and is in itself not big. But it tore down a painstakingly built cross-party agreement to confront the financial crisis with fiscal probity.
An angry Fischer said the deficit would rise to 5.6-5.7 percent of gross domestic product next year from the planned 5.3 percent, after 6.6 percent this year.
"This showed to the markets that there can be no high expectations regarding fiscal consolidation by the Czech left should they win the summer 2010 elections," said Martin Lobotka, analyst at Erste Bank's Ceska Sporitelna.
"(Such consolidation) is necessary if this country wants the euro and does not want to take the path of Hungary or Greece. The left still does not appreciate the gravity of large deficits."
2011 DOUBTS
The Czechs, thanks to low debt, strong bank deposits and a lack of household debt in foreign currencies, have avoided a meltdown or the need to tap international aid in the crisis, as was the case in Hungary, Romania and the Baltic Sea states.
But they have structural weaknesses that some of their neighbours have already dealt with -- chiefly, a failure to reform a pension system that if left alone would overwhelm public finances.
The Social Democrats' move also pandered to public sector workers, axing a 4 percent pay cut agreed by the government and parliament earlier after teachers, firemen and policemen all staged public protests to push for bigger wages.
The government had pushed through a $4 billion tax hikes and spending cuts package to bring the deficit down next year. But that was partially undone by the vote on Wednesday and the package is also limited to 2010, posing a question over the 2011 budget that the new government will have to put together quickly after an election expected in May.
The government sees budget gaps of 5.6 percent in 2011 and 5.5 percent in 2012. The European Commission will likely push for smaller gaps, as it requires a deficit of 3 percent by 2013.
The Social Democrats say they will not cut public sector wages but rather hike taxes for top earners and raise the corporate tax by about 2 percentage points, and could also raise the levy on tobacco and alcohol.
"We will cut the deficit below the 3 percent level by the end of the election term (in 2014)," said Social Democrat Vice Chairman Bohuslav Sobotka, a former finance minister. "We will reduce the deficit to adopt the euro in 2015-2016."
Pavel Mertlik, a Social Democrat finance minister in 1999-2001 and chief economist at Raiffeisenbank in Prague, said he was not worried by the 2010 spending because it would help demand. But in the longer run, tax hikes would not be enough.
"Definitely not (enough) from a longer-term perspective; cuts will be necessary," he said.
Finance Minister Eduard Janota, a veteran who has worked on about 30 budgets and who had earlier pushed for more savings measures in early 2010, threw in the towel on further cuts after the Wednesday vote.
"If I (remain) in the post of minister, I am not making any ambitions for the rest of this government's tenure," he said.
(Editing by Patrick Graham)