Eighteen European countries have a larger quarterly debt than Greece
Greece may be the country making headlines for its debt at the moment, but there were eighteen other countries in the EU with a larger debt as a proportion of GDP in 2014's third quarter.
Greece's national debt was €70 bn in Q3 2014, according to the latest data released by Eurostat. The quarter's debt stood at 39 per cent of the country's GDP, which has slumped in recent years.
Quarterly government debt is defined as the total gross debt at nominal value outstanding at the end of each quarter. While Greece is relatively low among EU countries for Q3's debt in 2014, it had the highest overall debt in 2013, at €174.7 bn.
If viewing on a mobile device, scroll to the right of the map to scroll past it.
In Q3 2014, the EU countries with the largest quarterly government debt as a proportion of GDP are:
- Italy – 111.2 per cent
- Belgium – 88.5 per cent
- France – 80.4 per cent
- United Kingdom – 78.7 per cent
- Spain – 77.3 per cent
Germany also had a larger quarterly government debt that Greece. Debt stood at €1.58 trillion in the third quarter of 2014, which is 54.7 per cent of its GDP. The country has been reluctant to accept Syriza's new debt deal for austerity-hit Greece.
Estonia and Luxembourg had the lowest quarterly debt as a proportion of GDP – with the countries owing just 1.3 and 13 per cent respectively.
In terms of total national debt, there were nineteen countries in the EU with a higher debt than Greece. Hungary had the largest debt of any EU country. It awes €20.9bn, standing at 66.8 per cent of its GDP.