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.
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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.
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