In most EU Member States, the largest share of public debt is held by non-residents

The FINANCIAL — Among the Member States for which data are available, Sweden (29% of total government debt has a term below one year) and Bulgaria (21%) registered in 2014 the highest proportions of short-term initial maturities of debt. Italy (15%), Hungary (14%), Portugal (13%) and France (12%) also recorded shares of short-term maturity debt above 10%. At the opposite end of the scale, almost all debt was made up of long-term maturities in Poland,Estonia and Slovakia.

This information comes from a report released by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. It provides detailed information on general government debt in the EU Member States broken down by subsector, financial instrument, debt holder, maturity, currency of issuance as well as government guarantees and other features

Government debt mainly financed by debt securities in most Member States

In 2014, debt securities were the main financial instrument in all EU Member States, except Estonia, Greece and Cyprus where loans accounted for 87%, 77% and 65% respectively. The use of loans was also high in Portugal (44%), Luxembourg (41%), Latvia (39%), Croatia (38%) and Bulgaria (37%). On the other hand, the highest proportions of debt financed by debt securities were recorded in Malta (92% of total government debt), the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom (both 89%), Slovenia and Slovakia (both 87%), Hungary (86%), France and Italy (both 84%). The use of currency and deposits was in general very low, except in Ireland (10%), the United Kingdom (9%), Italy (8%) and Portugal (7%).

Government debt held by non-residents ranged from 81% in Finland to 2% in Luxembourg

Significant differences can be observed across the EU regarding the sector in which the government debt is held. Among Member States for which data are available, the share of public debt held by the non-resident sector in 2014 was highest in Finland (81% of total government debt) and Latvia (80%), followed by Austria (76%), Lithuania (73%), Slovenia (71%) and Portugal (70%). In contrast, the largest proportion of debt held by the resident financial sector was recorded in Luxembourg (98%), well ahead of Romania (74%), the Czech Republic (63%) and Croatia (59%). Generally across the EU, less than 10% of debt was held by the resident non-financial sector, with the noticeable exceptions of Malta (36%), Belgium (13%), Hungary (12%), Ireland and Italy (both 10%).