The ratio of government debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the euro area in the last quarter of 2023 has fallen to 88.6% from 90.8% a year earlier. Overall in the European Union, the debt-to-GDP ratio will fall to 81.7% from 83.4% in 2022, according to official European statistics published yesterday.
Government debt by country
At the end of the last quarter of last year, according to Eurostat data, the lowest ratio of government debt to GDP among EU countries was recorded in Estonia (19.6 percent), Bulgaria (23.1 percent), Luxembourg ( 25.7 percent) and Denmark (29.3 percent).
The highest ratio – public debt to GDP at the end of 2023 was registered in Greece (161.9 percent), Italy (137.3 percent), France (110.6 percent), Spain (107.7 per cent) and Belgium (105.2 per cent).
For Bulgaria, the public debt rose slightly to 23.1% of GDP at the end of 2023 compared to 22.6% of GDP a year earlier, but our country nevertheless remains the second in the EU with the lowest levels of debt, as is overtaken only by Estonia.
At the same time, Bulgaria’s government debt rose the most in the last quarter of 2023 compared to three months earlier, rising by 2.1 percentage points compared to the third quarter, Eurostat data show. Compared to a year earlier, the Bulgarian debt increased by 0.5 percentage points at the end of 2023, with more solid debt growth recorded in six other EU member states.
Compared to the third quarter, at the end of 10 EU countries report an increase in the ratio of government debt to GDP. The biggest increase in this indicator is Bulgaria (+2.1 percentage points), followed by Latvia (+1.6 percentage points), Finland (+1.5 percentage points), Estonia (+1.4 percentage points) , Sweden (+1.2 percentage points) and Poland (+1 percentage point).
The biggest decrease in the ratio of public debt to GDP among EU countries during this period was registered in Portugal (-8.4 percentage points), Greece (-3.7 percentage points), Slovenia (-2.6 percentage points), Belgium (-2.4 percentage points), Slovakia (-2.3 percentage points) and Spain (-2.1 percentage points).
Budget deficit
In 2023, the overall budget deficit within the EU increased slightly to 3.5% of GDP compared to 3.4% in 2022, and in the euro area it decreased from 3.7% to 3.6%.
In Bulgaria, the budget deficit shrank more sharply in the last quarter of 2023 to 1.9% of GDP compared to 2.9% of GDP a year earlier.
Only three member states posted a budget surplus at the end of last year: Cyprus (3.1% of GDP), Denmark (3.1%), Ireland (1.7%) and Portugal (1.2%). Only six other EU members report smaller deficits than the Bulgarian one: the Netherlands (deficit of 0.3% of GDP), Sweden (deficit of 0.6%), Croatia (-0.7%), Lithuania (- 0.8%), Luxembourg (-1.3%), Greece (-1.6%).
The largest budget deficits at the end of last year were reported in Italy (7.4% of GDP), Hungary (6.7%) and Romania (6.6%).
