By Marcin Grajewski
BRUSSELS, April 22 (Reuters) - The euro zone's budget deficit and debt levels rose sharply in 2008, data showed on Wednesday, as the recession hit government revenues and schemes to boost economic growth emptied its coffers.
The deficit in the 16-nation currency area increased to 1.9 percent of gross domestic product in 2008 from the previous year's 0.6 percent, with Ireland and Greece recording the highest shortfalls, the EU statistics office Eurostat said.
The 2008 deficit figure was higher than the 1.7 percent of GDP previously estimated by the European Commission.
The euro zone's debt-to-GDP ratio increased to 69.3 percent from 2007's 66.0 percent, with the highest figures seen in Italy, at 105.8 percent, and Greece, at 97.6 percent.
In the whole 27-nation European Union, the collective budget deficit grew to 2.3 percent of GDP from 0.8 percent, reflecting a gap of 5.5 percent in Britain.
The Commission has forecast the euro zone's deficit will balloon to 4.0 percent of GDP in 2009, the highest since the area was created, and to 4.4 percent in 2010 as governments spend hundreds of billions of euros on bailouts and stimulus.
Eurostat's figures confirmed that many EU countries exceeded the bloc's deficit ceiling of 3 percent of GDP, vindicating the Commission's decision to take disciplinary action against countries such as Greece, Spain, France and Ireland.
Ireland's deficit soared to 7.1 percent of GDP in 2008 from a surplus of 0.2 percent in 2007 while in Greece the corresponding deficits were 5.0 percent and 3.6 percent.
The EU has given France and Spain until 2012 to bring their deficits below 3 percent of GDP, backed a 2013 deadline for Ireland but urged Greece to get in line next year.
Eurostat said Poland's deficit was 3.9 percent of GDP last year, compared with 1.9 percent in 2007, rather than 2.7 percent last year as claimed recently by the government.
This means Poland, which wants to adopt the euro in 2012, no longer meets the key budget deficit criterion for joining the currency zone. (Editing by Dale Hudson)