Ten member states, eight of them from the Eurozone, recorded a budgetary surplus in 2016, according to official figures published by the statistical office of the European Union (Eurostat) on Monday 21 April.
In decreasing order of budgetary surplus, the countries concerned are: Luxembourg (+1.6% of GDP), Malta (+1.0%), Sweden (+0.9%), Germany (+0.8%), Greece (+0.7%), the Czech Republic (+0.6%), Cyprus and the Netherlands (+0.4% each) and Estonia and Lithuania (+0.3%). Latvia and Bulgaria were in balance.
In 2016, the lowest government deficits were to be seen in Ireland (-0.6% of GDP), Croatia (-0.8%) and Denmark (-0.9%). In four member states, however, government deficit was above 3% of GDP: Spain (-4.5% of GDP), France (-3.4%) and Romania and the United Kingdom (-3.0% each).
On an aggregated basis, the average Eurozone deficit has fallen from 2.1% of GDP in 2015 to 1.5% in 2016. At EU level, it falls from 2.4% of GDP to 1.7%.
Average government debt down
Last year, government debt in the Eurozone fell from 90.3% of GDP at the end of 2015 to 89.2% at the end of 2016. At EU level, it fell from 84.9% to 83.5% of GDP.
However, at the end of 2016, there were 16 member states with a government debt to GDP ratio of more than 60% of GDP, the upper limit laid down by criteria in the Maastricht Treaty.
The highest government debts were observed in Greece (+179.0% of GDP in 2016, compared to +177.4% in 2015), Italy (+132.6% in 2016, compared to 132.1%), Portugal (+130.4%, compared to 129.0%), Cyprus (107.8%, compared to 107.5%) and Belgium (105.9%, compared to 106.0%). The Spanish debt is around 100% of GDP (99.4% in 2016 and 99.8% in 2015), whilst the French debt has increased further, from 95.6% of gDP in 2015 to 96.0% in 2016. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)