Sursa foto: Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea
All EU member states ended 2020 with a government deficit, but in percentage terms the highest values were recorded in Spain (11% of GDP), Greece (10.1% of GDP), Malta (9.7% of GDP), Italy (9.6% of GDP) and Romania (9.4% of GDP), according to revised data published Thursday by Eurostat and cited by Agerpres.
According to these figures, calculated using the ESA methodology, Denmark and Sweden were the only EU countries to have a government deficit in 2020 below the 3% of GDP limit set in the Stability and Growth Pact, 0.2% of GDP and 2.8% of GDP respectively.
At EU level, the government deficit increased explosively to 6.9% of GDP in 2020 from a deficit of 0.5% of GDP in 2019, while in the euro area the increase was one of 0.6% of GDP to 7.2% of GDP.
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In the case of Romania, Eurostat data show that the government deficit doubled from 46.627 billion lei (or 4.4% of GDP) in 2019 to 97.710 billion lei (9.4% of GDP) in 2020, as government spending rose from 36.3% of GDP to 42.2% of GDP, while revenue increased from 31.9% of GDP to 32.8% of GDP.
There was also a significant increase in government debt in 2020 compared to 2019, from 77.2% of GDP to 90.1% of GDP for the European Union and from 83.6% of GDP to 97.3% of GDP for the euro area. Almost half of EU countries (13 out of 27 Member States) had government debt above 60% of GDP at the end of last year, led by Greece (206.3% of GDP), Italy (155.6% of GDP), Portugal (135.2% of GDP) and Spain (120% of GDP).
At the other end of the scale, the countries with the lowest share of government debt are Estonia (19% of GDP), Bulgaria (24.7% of GDP), Luxembourg (24.8% of GDP), the Czech Republic (37.7% of GDP) and Sweden (39.7% of GDP).
As for Romania, government debt increased from 373.497 billion lei, or 35.3% of GDP, in 2019 to 499.868 billion lei, or 47.4% of GDP, in 2020.
In its press release, Eurostat stresses that it has not made any changes to the data sent by member countries