Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

ESTAT Unit D1: Excessive deficit procedure, methodology and GFS

2920 Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG

Data are the result of the annual structure of government debt survey and cover the EU Member States and Norway.

The following series are available:

Central government gross debt by initital maturity, financial instrument and sector of debt holder;
State government gross debt by initital maturity, financial instrument and sector of debt holder;
Local government gross debt by initital maturity, financial instrument and sector of debt holder;
Social security funds gross debt by initital maturity, financial instrument and sector of debt holder;
General government gross debt by initital maturity, financial instrument and sector of debt holder;
Debt by currency of issuance;
Government guarantees (contingent liabilities);
Remaining maturity and average remaining maturity of debt;
Apparent cost of the debt;
Market value of debt.

The definitions of financial instruments and sectors/subsectors are aligned with ESA 2010 principles (chapters 2, 5, 7 and 20). The definition of Maastricht debt is consistent with the one laid down in Regulation 479/2009 as amended.

General government (S.13) and subsectors (S.1311, S.1312, S.1313, S.1314).

Counterpart sectors: non-financial corporations (S.11), financial corporations (S.12), households and non-profit institutions serving households (S.14 and S.15), rest of the world (S.2).

The Maastricht definition of debt is total gross debt at nominal (face) value outstanding at the end of the year and consolidated between and within the sectors of general government. This definition is in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 479/2009 of 25 May 2009 on the application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community.

General government gross debt is a key indicator of the government sector's financial position. Eurostat receives information on the structure of government debt by implementing surveys. The collected data allow for country comparisons and give some indication about the evolution of the components of the government debt over time.

The domain consists of six tables:

• Central government debt;
• State government debt;
• Local government debt;
• Social security funds debt;
• General government debt;
• Additional classifications of debt.

Data are also broken down by initial maturity, sector of debt holder, currency (domestic/foreign), remaining maturity, apparent cost of debt and market value of debt.

Furthermore, data on government guarantees is provided (contingent liabilities not included in general government gross debt).

Data are available in the following units: national currency, euro, percentage of GDP and percentage of total debt. GDP is gross domestic product at current market prices, as defined in ESA2010 (B.1*g) and as supplied in the April 2022 EDP notification.

Institutional units and groupings of units as defined in ESA 2010.

General Government sector (S.13).

EU Member States and Norway.

Annual data for 2020 and 2021. However, the lengths of series vary according to country and indicator. Current surveys cover the previous two years; some countries provide longer time series. In case Maastricht debt is revised for previous years, previously published data is withdrawn from the public database as consistency with the Maastricht debt aggregates is no longer assured.

Not available.

Data are available in the following units: national currency, euro, percentage of GDP and percentage of total debt. GDP is gross domestic product at current market prices, as defined in ESA2010 (B.1*g) and reflects the latest GDP supplied in the April 2022 EDP Notification.

The reference period is the end of the previous two calendar years.

National accounts are compiled in accordance with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) adopted in the form of a Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union.

Not available.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Not available.

No release calendar. Data is usually collected in May of year t+1 and disseminated in June of year t+1 following validation. The precise release date is announced on the Eurostat release calendar at least one week before.

See 8.1.

Data are disseminated simultaneously to all interested parties through a database update and on Eurostat's website.

No pre-release access is granted for this data set.

Annual. When revisions occur, data is updated.

Not available.

An detailed analysis is available on Statistics Explained.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Structure_of_government_debt&stable=0&redirect=no

Please consult free data online at Database - Eurostat

Not available.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat

The ESA2010 methodology is referred to in Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union.

Not available.

A compliance monitoring has been carried out during 2012 on quarterly government debt data, with good results.

Timeliness and punctuality of the data are good. Moreover, data are comparable and consistent for all European Union countries due to the use of ESA2010 concepts.

Not available.

Not available.

Coverage depends on countries.

Not available.

Not available.

Not available.

The debt questionnaire is launched once per year. There is no legal deadline, although countries are asked to send data before a given time.

Punctuality depends on the country.

Data are generally comparable across countries.

Foreign currency breakdown: The reporting is not currently fully harmonised between reporting countries. Countries are encouraged to report hedged foreign currency amounts to national currency under domestic currency. A small number of countries may report the stock of foreign currency debt at nominal value, implying a small distortion in the shares of domestic and foreign currency.

The general government gross debt largely corresponds to the totals transmitted in the context of the April 2022 EDP notification, with some data updates since explaining any differences.

The coverage of guarantees may also vary between countries.

Data are fully comparable over time.

For all contingent liabilties, coverage may be expanding over time.

National data may be available from official national sources. Some variables can be cross-checked with other tables submitted under the ESA2010 transmission programme but subject to timing differences in the reporting.

Consistency with quarterly government debt and EDP data is assured (see also 15.1).

Full coherence.

Not available.

Each new edition of the survey covers the two previous years only. Some countries may send additional years (revised).

Major changes in methodology may occur as a result of EU legislation or Eurostat decisions (following a consultation procedure with Member States).

For all GFS data, Eurostat accepts revisions at any time.

Data are the result of debt surveys conducted on a regular basis since 2003.

Respondents of the survey: Members of EDP Statistics WG representing National Statistical Offices, Ministries of Finance and/or National Central Banks reply to the survey. Source data are mainly from government administrative records. GDP as supplied in the April 2022 EDP Notification.

General government gross debt is a key indicator of the general government sector's financial position. Eurostat receives information on the structure of government debt by implementing surveys. The collected data allow for country comparisons and give some indication about the evolution of the components of the government debt over time.

Annual.

The data are collected on a voluntary basis via an annual survey organised by Eurostat.

The survey questionnaire contains a set of five tables (central government debt, state government debt, local government debt, social security funds debt and general government debt) for the last four calendar years plus a table with additional detail of government debt.

Data are checked for consistency within and between tables. Cross-checking with general government gross data provided in the context of Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) data is also undertaken. A number of further coherence checks are undertaken as well.

Sector and instrument breakdowns are in accordance with ESA 2010. Valuation is at nominal (face) value. Foreign currency debt is converted into national currency using end-year market exchange rates.

Ratios as a percentage of GDP are based on annual GDP data transmitted to Eurostat in the context of the April 2022 EDP Notification.

European aggregates are based on the sum of the individual country data. For series transmitted in national currencies other than euro, the data are converted by Eurostat into euro using end-year exchange rates.

Not available.

The survey is not fully completed by all countries. Hence the number of countries shown for each breakdown of gross debt as well as guarantess varies.

Some breakdowns of general government gross debt by sector of debt holder, detailed maturity and by currency may not sum to the total debt instrument/gross debt, in case detailed information was not available for some items.

Foreign currency breakdown: The reporting is not currently fully harmonised between reporting countries. Countries are encouraged to report hedged foreign currency amounts to national currency under domestic currency. A small number of countries may report the stock of foreign currency debt at nominal value, implying a small distortion in the shares of domestic and foreign currency.

Country notes:

Portugal: Information on the detailed split of long-term loans by initial maturity is partially available. For this reason, total long-term loans exceed the detailed breakdown.

Greece: The coverage of data relating to the remaining maturity of debt, currency of issuance, apparent cost of debt excludes extra-budgetary units of central government. Thus the coverage of central government data for these indicators is limited to S.1311.1, the budgetary central government. For guarantees: the amounts for scheme of standardised guarantees are included (taking into consideration COVID-19 related measures).

Denmark: The coverage of data relating to the remaining maturity of central government gross debt is limited to debt securities and deposits.

Germany: Only asset guarantees provided to publicly controlled monetary financial institutions are included under guarantees given by government units on non-government borrowing to financial corporations (S.12) sector, see also https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Government/Public-Finance/EU-Directive-Budgetary-Frameworks/Tables/guarantees.html.