Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said Wednesday he opposed a proposal from Brussels to impose new budget controls on EU countries, saying it was "strange" it should concern countries with good public finances like Sweden.

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"That this should concern all countries is something we find a little strange," he told a press conference in Stockholm after the European Commission proposed Wednesday that EU countries submit their national budgets to Brussels for "peer review" before they go to national parliaments.

"This kind of discussion could perhaps be possible for (countries) with a budget policy that goes against the (EU) stability and growth pact," he said.

"But countries like Sweden, we are a shining exception with good public finances and don't even come close to the limits one is not permitted to surpass. It is not fair to treat us the same way," he said.

After many years of budgetary surplus, Sweden posted the EU's lowest public deficit last year, representing 0.5 percent of GDP, according to Eurostat, far below the more than 10 percent of GDP deficits posted in other EU countries such as the UK, Greece, or Spain.

Public debt represented 42.3 percent of GDP in Sweden in 2009.

According to the European Commission, Sweden's deficit should reach 2.1 percent of GDP this year before shrinking to 1.6 percent of GDP in 2011. The government plans a return to surplus in 2012.