EU: Governments' debt reaches $14.6T in 2018

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - The government debt rose by more than 1% to reach €12.7 trillion ($14.3 trillion) year-on-year in 2018 in the EU28, the bloc's statistic authority announced on Tuesday.

The highest amount of government debts were posted by Italy and France with €2.3 trillion ($2.6 trillion) each, according to Eurostat data.

The U.K., Germany and Spain followed them with £1.84 trillion (€2.1 trillion or $2.4 trillion), €2.06 trillion ($2.3 trillion), and €1.17 trillion ($1.3 trillion).

Last year in the EU, the government debt to GDP ratio dropped by 1.7 percentage points to 80%, compared with 2017, Eurostat said.

As of end of 2018, Estonia (8.4%), Luxembourg (21.4%) and Bulgaria (22.6%) registered the lowest ratios of government debt to GDP.

Greece, Italy and Portugal recorded the highest ratios of government debt to GDP with 181.1%, 132.2% and 121.5%, respectively, at the end of 2018.

Meanwhile, the government deficit was €99.2 billion ($114.1 billion) in the EU, down from €154 billion ($183.26 billion) in 2017.

In 2018, the government deficit to GDP ratio fell by 0.4 percentage points to 0.6% versus the previous year.

The 28-country-block's GDP was nearly €15.9 trillion ($18.3 trillion) in 2018, according to the official data.

In 2018, government expenditure in the EU28 was equivalent to 45.6% of GDP and government revenue to 45%, Eurostat said.

The U.S. dollar/euro rate was 1.15 at the end of 2018 and 1.27 at the end of 2017. One British pound was traded as 1.15 euros as of end of the last year.