Finance ministers of the European Union agreed to tighten budgetary rules and punish those member nations who violate them. This is to avoid recurrence of a debt crisis as witnessed in Greece earlier this year.After months of negotiations, the finance ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg yesterday reached a deal on imposing sanctions on national governments, who fail to bring their debts under control.Member nations are required not only to reduce their deficits to 3 per cent of their GDP, but also to scale down their total debts to 60 per cent of the GDP. The new rules will initially apply to the 16 nations, which use the euro as their common currency and later will be extended to the rest of the 27-nation group, except Britain, which has opted out of its regime. The heads of state and government of the EU are expected to endorse the new financial rules at a summit in Brussels at the end of this month.