Eurostat, 2018: Romania had a very small public debt: 35% of GDP and a government deficit of 3%

By Jerom Bolt
In a release today, the statistical office of the European Union, Eurostat, provides the government deficit and debt data for the years 2015-2018 based on the figures reported by EU Member States in the second notification of 2019, for applying excessive deficit procedure (EDP). This notification is based on the ESA 2010 system from national accounts.
In 2018, the public deficit and the debt of both the euro area (EA19) and the EU28 decreased in relative terms compared to 2017. In the euro area, the ratio of government deficit / GDP decreased from 0.9% in 2017 to 0.5% in 2018, and in EU28 from 1.0% to 0.7%. In the euro area, the public debt / GDP ratio dropped from 87.8% to the end of 2017 to 85.9% at the end of 2018, and in the EU28 from 82.1% to 80.4%.
In terms of government debt, Romania is among the states with the lowest level. Thus, in 2018, the government debt was 35% of GDP, more than twice as low as the EU 28 states.
In 2018, Romania’s government debt was 35% of GDP, lower than in 2017 (35.1%), 2016 (37.3%) and 2015 (37.8%). The lowest government debt in Eastern Europe was Bulgaria (22.3%), Czechia 32.6%), and the highest government debt was Croatia (74.8%), Slovenia (70.4% ), Hungary (70.2%), followed by Slovakia and Poland with almost 50%.
In 2018, a single EU member state – Cyprus – had a government deficit of more than 3% of GDP last year, while Romania had a budget deficit of 3% of GDP.
In 2018, the countries that registered the budget surplus are Luxembourg (2.7%), Germany and Malta (both 1.9%), Bulgaria (1.8%), Holland (1.5%), Czech Republic (1.1 %), Greece (1%), Denmark, Slovenia and Sweden (all with 0.8%), Lithuania (0.6%), Croatia (0.3%), Austria (0.2%) and Ireland (0 ,1%).
At the same time, two Member States last year had government deficits equal to or greater than 3% of GDP: Romania (3%) and Cyprus (4.4%).