Brussels, 22/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - Public debt in the eurozone stood at 1.8% of GDP in the third quarter of 2015 (2.2% in Q215) and public debt at 91.6% of GDP (92.3% in Q215), according to the figures released by the EU's statistical office, Eurostat, on Friday 22 January.
At the EU level the public deficit also fell, to 2.3% of GDP from 2.6% in Q215, as did the public debt, from 87.7% to 86.0% of GDP.
The highest ratios of government debt to GDP at the end of the third quarter of 2015 were recorded in Greece (171.0%), Italy (134.6%) and Portugal (130.5%), and the lowest in Estonia (9.8%), Luxembourg (21.3%) and Bulgaria (26.9%). Compared with the second quarter of 2015, twenty-one Member States registered a decrease in their debt to GDP ratio at the end of the third quarter of 2015 and seven an increase. The highest decreases in the ratio were recorded in Ireland (-2.7 percentage points - pp), Italy (-1.4 pp), Bulgaria (-1.3 pp), Finland (-1.2 pp) and Malta (-1.1 pp), and the highest increases in Slovenia (+3.3 pp), Greece (+2.1 pp) and Portugal (+1.9 pp). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)