Malta registers fourth largest decrease of debt to GDP ratio in EU
Compared with the second quarter of 2016, nine Member States registered an increase in their debt to GDP ratio at the end of the second quarter of 2017 and nineteen a decrease. The highest increases in the ratio were recorded in Lithuania (+1.8 pp), Luxembourg (+1.4 pp) and France (+1.3 pp), while the largest decreases were recorded in Greece (-4.7 pp), the Netherlands (-4.5 pp), Ger- many (-3.9 pp), Malta (-3.8 pp) and Austria (-3.5 pp).
At the end of the second quarter of 2017, the government debt to GDP ratio in the euro area (EA19) stood at 89.1%, compared with 89.2% at the end of the first quarter of 2017. In the EU28, the ratio also decreased, from 83.6% to 83.4%.
Compared with the second quarter of 2016, the government debt to GDP ratio fell in both the euro area (from 90.8% to 89.1%) and the EU28 (from 83.8% to 83.4%).
At the end of the second quarter of 2017, debt securities accounted for 80.3% of euro area and for 81.4% of EU28 general government debt.
Loans made up 16.6% and 14.5% respectively and currency and deposits represented 3.1% of euro area and 4.1% of EU28 government debt.
Due to the involvement of EU governments in financial assistance to certain Member States, quarterly data on intergovernmental lending (IGL) is also published. The share of IGL in GDP at the end of the second quarter of 2017 amounted to 2.1% in the euro area and to 1.6% in the EU28.
The highest ratios of government debt to GDP at the end of the second quarter of 2017 were recorded in Greece (175.0%), Italy (134.7%) and Portugal (132.1%), and the lowest in Estonia (8.9%), Luxembourg (23.4%) and Bulgaria (27.7%).
Compared with the first quarter of 2017, seven Member States registered an increase in their debt to GDP ratio at the end of the second quarter of 2017 and twenty a decrease, while the debt to GDP ratio remained stable in the United Kingdom. The highest increases in the ratio were recorded in Lithuania (+2.6 percentage points – pp), Portugal (+1.7 pp), Italy and Latvia (both +0.7 pp) and France (+0.5 pp). The largest decreases were recorded in Croatia (-4.5 pp), Slovakia (1.6 pp), Malta (-1.4 pp), Belgium and Greece (both -1.1 pp).