ZAGREB, October 22, 2018 – Croatia is among 13 European Union member states which recorded a government budget surplus in 2017 and among 15 EU countries with public debt exceeding 60% of Gross Domestic Product, according to a report released by the EU statistical office Eurostat on Monday.
Last year, Croatia recorded a government surplus of 0.9% of GDP, which is 0.1 percentage points higher than Eurostat’s initial estimate released in late April. In 2016, Croatia reported a government deficit of 0.9%.
“In 2017, Malta (+3.5%), Cyprus (+1.8%), Sweden (+1.6%), Czechia (+1.5%), Luxembourg (+1.4%), the Netherlands (+1.2%), Bulgaria and Denmark (both +1.1%), Germany (+1.0%), Croatia (+0.9%), Greece (+0.8%), Lithuania (+0.5%) and Slovenia (+0.1%), registered a government surplus,” according to Eurostat.
“The lowest government deficits as a percentage of GDP were recorded in Ireland (-0.2%), Estonia (-0.4%), Latvia (-0.6%) and Finland (-0.7%). Two Member States had deficits equal to or higher than 3% of GDP: Spain (-3.1%) and Portugal (-3.0%),” Eurostat said.
The government deficit of the 28-member EU fell from 1.7% of GDP in 2016 to 1.0% in 2017, while in the 19-member euro area it decreased from 1.6% in 2016 to 1.0% in 2017.
In 2017, Croatia had a government debt to GDP ratio of 77.5%, half a percentage point lower than in Eurostat’s April estimate. In 2016, it was 80.2%.
Croatia was among 15 countries with public debt exceeding 60% of GDP, the upper limit set by the Maastricht criteria. The highest ratios of government debt to GDP were recorded in Greece (176.1%), Italy (131.2%), Portugal (124.8%), Belgium (103.4%), France (98.5%) and Spain (98.1%), while the lowest ratios were registered in Estonia (8.7%), Luxembourg (23.0%), Bulgaria (25.6%), Czechia (34.7%), Romania (35.1%) and Denmark (36.1%).
In the EU28, the government debt to GDP ratio declined from 83.3% at the end of 2016 to 81.6% at the end of 2017, and in the euro area from 89.1% to 86.8%.
