General government debt grew by EUR 3 billion in the first quarter of 2022

Central government debt grew by EUR 3 billion during the first quarter

During the first quarter, central government debt grew by EUR 3.0 billion and was EUR 151.0 billion at the end of the quarter. The stock of long-term bonds grew by EUR 5.0 billion and the stock of short-term debt instruments with a maturity of under one year decreased by EUR 1.7 billion. The stock of short-term loans remained almost on level with the previous quarter, but the methodological change made to the treatment of ARA loans raised the level of long-term loans considerably for the entire time series. Due to this change, central government's loan stock grew by EUR 9.0 billion for the last quarter of 2021.

Local government sector’s debt decreased by EUR 0.1 billion

The local government sector's debt decreased by EUR 0.1 billion and stood at EUR 32.5 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2022. The amount of short-term debt instruments diminished by EUR 0.1 billion from the previous quarter. The time series of local government loans was also revised considerably because the treatment of housing company loans and particularly ARA loans changed in statistics compilation. In the last quarter of 2021, local government's loan stock grew by EUR 6.3 billion due to changes. Social security funds' debt grew by EUR 0.5 billion and totalled EUR 3.2 billion at the end of the quarter. Of these, the debt stock of employment pension schemes was EUR 1.9 billion and that of other social security funds EUR 1.3 billion.

Definition of EDP debt

General government EDP debt describes general government’s debt to other sectors of the national economy and to the rest of the world, and its development is influenced by changes in unconsolidated debt and internal general government debts. Consolidated general government gross debt is derived by deducting debts between units recorded under general government from unconsolidated gross debt. For this reason, general government debt is smaller than the combined debts of its sub-sectors. The debt-to-GDP ratio has been calculated using a seasonally and working day adjusted GDP series at market prices.

The EDP debt of general government differs conceptionally to some extent in the case of central government from the central government debt published by the State Treasury. Central government's EDP debt also includes loans granted to beneficiary counties by the European Financial Stability Facility EFSF, received cash collaterals related to derivative contracts, the capital of the Nuclear Waste Management Fund, debts generated from investments in central government's PPP (public-private partnership) projects, coins that are in circulation, and the deposits of the European Commission. In National Accounts, central government is also a broader concept than the budget and financial economy. However, the State Pension Fund is classified as a social security fund. The valuation principle for both debt concepts is the nominal value, where the effect of currency swaps is taken into account.