In the fourth quarter of last year, Latvia experienced a sharper increase in general government debt relative to gross domestic product (GDP) compared to the average in the European Union (EU) and the eurozone, according to data published Tuesday by the EU statistical office Eurostat.
In Latvia, government debt increased by 2.1 percentage points year-on-year in the fourth quarter.
General government debt rose in 16 EU member states during the fourth quarter, with the sharpest increases recorded in Romania (+5.9 percentage points), Poland (+5.7 pp), Finland (+4.5 pp), Slovakia (+3.6 pp), and Estonia (+3.4 pp). In Lithuania, general government debt grew by 0.9 percentage points.
Conversely, government debt decreased in 11 EU countries during the same period. The largest reductions were observed in Greece (-10.3 pp), Cyprus (-8.6 pp), Croatia (-4.3 pp), and Spain (-3.3 pp).
On average, the EU saw an increase of 0.2 percentage points, while the eurozone registered a rise of 0.1 percentage points.