BRUSSELS — Spain announced Friday that a deepening recession meant it would have to abandon its deficit-reduction targets for this year, and a European summit meeting that had looked to be surprisingly routine after two years of crisis ended with another test for the credibility of the euro zone.
Coming on the day that 25 European leaders signed a new fiscal pact meant to further entrench budgetary discipline, the unexpected announcement from the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, illustrated how many European economies remained trapped between the need to repair their finances and an opposing pressure to restore economic growth.
Although markets have calmed in recent weeks, largely because of the action of the European Central Bank, leaders gave differing verdicts on whether the crisis was behind them or whether the euro zone had just bought time to shore up the currency.
Spain’s predicament is a reminder of how, in several countries, the austerity measures that evolved from the debt crisis have eroded confidence and reduced growth, making it harder to escape a downward spiral.
Without discussing his budget plans in detail with fellow European leaders, Mr. Rajoy set himself a target for 2012 of a deficit equivalent to 5.8 percent of gross domestic product, arguing that this was more realistic than the original goal of 4.4 percent.
Mr. Rajoy said he was acting within guidelines because Spain still intended to hit the European Union’s public deficit goal of 3 percent of G.D.P. in 2013. On Monday, the Spanish government said its budget deficit in 2011 was 8.5 percent, well above its 6 percent goal.
“I’m backing austerity and aim to reduce the deficit from 8.5 percent to 5.8 percent; that’s significant austerity,” Mr. Rajoy said after a two-day summit meeting in Brussels ended Friday, adding that he did not consult other European leaders about a step he described as a “sovereign decision by Spain.”
Although there was some support for Mr. Rajoy, on the grounds that he still intended to hit the 2013 target, his decision to make an announcement, rather than negotiating first with the bloc’s executive branch, the European Commission, was seen by some as a political misstep.
In 2009, Spain was given an extra year to meet its targets, and the unilateral move now could make it more difficult for the commission, which polices budget policy, to show further leniency when countries like Germany are preaching strict adherence to the rules to preserve the euro.
“Rajoy is still a bit inexperienced,” one official not authorized to discuss the issue said. “He thinks that most of the people around the table are political allies who will support him. But here you put your political considerations away because the dynamic that counts is that of national interests.”
In recent months, governments within the European Union have negotiated what at least on paper amounts to an even tougher fiscal compact, promising to write into their national law a commitment to balanced budgets. They have also rewritten the euro zone rule book to make it more difficult for countries that break the rules to avoid financial sanctions.
Since the old rules were repeatedly flouted, the credibility of this new system is now very much under scrutiny.
So far, the commission has said it cannot rule on the Spanish case until it has more information about why the country will miss its deficit targets and until it has seen its next budget proposals.
On Thursday, however, the commission took a tough line with the Netherlands, which also announced that its budget shortfall next year, at 4.5 percent of G.D.P., would miss its goal. That would match the expected outcome for this year, but is off its original target of 3 percent.
The controversy over Spain’s public finances cast a shadow over a meeting that some leaders had tried to present as a return to normalcy after a series of frenzied meetings over the last two years, some of which ended around dawn.
This time, leaders wrapped up their discussions, which began with dinner, by 11 p.m. on Thursday and concluded the Friday session by midday.
When asked whether she was relieved to be at a summit meeting where she could be in bed by midnight, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany joked that she was “with you all until midnight,” referring to her late-night, off-the-record discussions with German journalists. “It could have been worse,” she added.
Leaders struck a somewhat different tone over the extent to which they believed the crisis had abated after the injection of some 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) into euro zone banks in recent months by the European Central Bank, and a provisional agreement on a second package of loans for Greece worth 130 billion euros ($173 billion).
“It is not a 100 percent guarantee,” President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said, “but we are in the process of coming out of the crisis.” Mrs. Merkel struck a more cautious note. “We are not living in ordinary times; we are in a fragile situation,” she said. Much progress has been made, she added, “but to say the situation is not all that dire would be wrong.”
Final agreement on the Greek bailout is still required, and Germany itself is under pressure to agree to expand the euro zone bailout fund. One proposal, to run the temporary fund alongside its permanent 500 billion euro ($666 billion) replacement, had been scheduled for discussion at the meeting but was postponed.
A decision on this idea, which could generate a total fund of about 700 billion euros ($933 billion), is now likely before the spring meeting of the Group of 20 finance ministers, according to one senior official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Paul Geitner contributed reporting.