Between 2021 and 2023, in the European Union as in the Eurozone, the debt/GDP ratio it is expected to decline by an average of 1,8% each year. If we narrow the focus onItaly, however, the expected drop is much more consistent than the two averages and reaches 2,8% per year. The numbers are contained in a new focus of the Parliamentary Budget Office entitled "An overview of the budgetary strategies in the 2022 Stability and Convergence Programs of the EU countries".
Italy's debt/GDP remains 50 points above the Eurozone average
On the other hand, Italy is also the European country with the highest debt/GDP ratio after that of Greece. The expected data for our country are 147% in 2022 e 145,4% in 2023, levels significantly higher than the average for the countries of the UE (87,4% in 2022 and 86,1% in 2023) and the countries of theeuro area (95% in 2022 and 93,6% in 2023) in 2023.
In 2021, however, the Italian debt/GDP stood at 150,8%, against 89,6% on average for EU countries and 97,3% among euro area countries.
Since 2014, the debt held by central banks has multiplied by 9
The PBO's analysis also shows that, "following the start of the Eurosystem's government bond purchase programmes, the share of debt held by central banks of the euro area has increased significantly”, going from 2,9% at the end of 2014 to 25,6% at the end of 2021.
Last year the share of Italian debt held by Bank of Italy was equal to Present in several = 25,3%, just below the euro area average, lower than that of Germany (28,9%) and higher than that of France (21,8%).
The Italian deficit will remain above average
As for the public deficit, the 3% rule is suspended for the whole of 2023 and this year, on average, both EU and Eurozone countries expect a headline deficit still above the Maastricht threshold (4 and 4,2% respectively ), but the average data should return within the parameters in 2023 (at 2,9 and 3%).
However, the situation of theItaly, whose target remains above 3% of GDP in both years: 5,6% in 2022 e 3,9% in 2023.
In 2021, EU countries recorded an average headline deficit to GDP ratio of 4,7%, rising to 5,1% for euro area countries. In both cases, these are considerably lower than the deficit notified by Italy, which was equal to 7,2% of GDP.
