ROME, Oct. 23 -- For the first time ever, the European Commission rejected the draft budget plan for a member of the euro currency zone, formalizing a long-anticipated clash between Italy and the executive arm of the European Union.

In a Tuesday statement, the commission said Italy's draft budget that would feature a deficit equivalent to 2.4-percent of the country's gross domestic product, would create an unsustainable risk for the eurozone. The European Commission had called for a deficit measuring just 0.8 percent of gross domestic product.

The official communique from the commission gave Italy three more weeks to rewrite its budget plan with a smaller deficit or face heavy sanctions.

"The Italian government is openly and consciously working against commitments it made," Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission's vice-president for eurozone and financial stability, said in a press conference in Brussels. Dombrovskis said Italy left the commission with "no alternative" but to reject its draft plan.

The commission's move marked the first time it ever told a member of the euro currency zone -- which now includes 19 member states -- to rewrite a budget plan.

But Italian officials have said they have no plans to rewrite the draft. On Monday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told Rome's Foreign Press Association there was "no Plan B" for the 2019 budget. "This is the plan we have come up with," he said, adding the plan would help spark economic growth and would ultimately reduce debt.

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