Portugal maintains largest public division of the European Union in the second quarter – Observer
In the second quarter, the public debt ratio stood at 98.3% of GDP in the euro zone and 90.9% in the European Union (EU), keeping Portugal the third largest among the Member States (135.4 %), according to Eurostat.
The euro zone presented, between April and June, a public debt weight of 98.3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), down from 100% in the previous quarter, but above the 94.4% year-on-year.
In the EU, public debt was, in the second quarter, 90.9% of GDP, a fall in sequence (98.3%) but a year-on-year acceleration (87.2%).
For both the eurozone and the EU, Eurostat explains, the decline in the public debt ratio at the end of the second quarter was due to GDP recovery linked to economic recovery, with debt continuing to increase to finance measures put in place to mitigate the economic and social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The highest ratios of public doubt to GDP were recorded in the second quarter in Greece (207.2%), in Italy (156.3%) and in Portugal (135.4%) and the lowest in Estonia (19.6%), Bulgaria (24.7%) and Luxembourg (26.2%).
Portuguese public debt had a fourth largest decrease (-3.7 percentage points) in a chain and the fourth largest increase (9.1 points) among Member States, when compared to the second quarter of 2020.
Compared to the same quarter, between April and June, 24 Member States saw the weight of debt increase in relation to GDP, with the greatest advances being registered in Greece (15.9 percentage points), in Spain (12.5 points) , in Malta (10.8 points) and in Portugal (9.1 points).
Three countries saw public debt fall compared to the second quarter of 2020: Ireland (-3.1 percentage points), Denmark (-1.5 points) and the Netherlands (-0.8 points).