Italy’s government unveiled a 2015 budget Wednesday that could set it on a collision course with European Union officials along with France, which also intends to run bigger deficits for longer than previously pledged.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi presented a budget including cuts to labor taxes and personal income taxes worth €18 billion ($23 billion), in an attempt to jump-start the country’s depressed economy.

Italy and France, both struggling with stagnant business activity and high unemployment, are reluctant to inflict tax hikes or public-spending cuts on already-weak economies. But the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, could challenge the lack of ambitious belt-tightening in the two countries’ budgets.

The looming clash could test the commission’s new powers to police national finances, coming amid a growing debate in the eurozone over how to reanimate the region’s stalled economic recovery. Rome and Paris argue that the eurozone is suffering from a lack of demand and that annual rounds of government cuts are making the situation worse.