18th February 2025

Eurostat estimates for Q3 2024 of Eurozone and EU General government gross debt

My recent research on the shadow liabilities of the EU member states threw up an extraordinary question: what is EU GDP actually?

You can download the full research here.

For my 2021 book on th subject of the shadow liabilities I backed EU GDP out of similar information to the above table: EU General government gross debt of €12,740.6 billion divided by a Debt-to-GDP ratio of 88.1%, producing a GDP figure of €14,461.5 billion.

The above table puts EU General government gross debt at the end of Q3 2024 as €14,479.0 billion with a Debt-to-GDP of 81.6%. In that case EU GDP should have been running at €17,743.9 billion per annum.

This is strongly discordant with the picture for EU GDP growth from 2022-4 as issued by Statista, which is itself based on Eurostat. If €14,461.5 billion was the base figure in 2021, the situation will have developed as follows:

EU 2021 GDP expanded by annual rates of GDP growth

That is a difference of €2,520.7 billion between the two GDP figures for 2024. The higher figure infers a rise in GDP of €3,282.4 billion or 22.7% over 2022-4, enabling in reduction in Debt-to-GDP of 6.5% of GDP, albeit that the amount of EU General government gross debt rose by €1,738.4 billion or 13.6%.

It is not credible that member states’ Debt-to-GDP fell during a period where they consistently ran fiscal deficits which were on average outside the range of the Maastricht Criteria – exceeding 3% of GDP per annum.

To underline this, the EU went to the next step against several member states – including France and Italy – in its Excessive Deficit Procedure in January 2025.

GDP should have been running at €17,743.9 billion per annum if Debt-to-GDP really was 81.6%.

If GDP was actually running at €15,223.2, then Debt-to-GDP was 95.1%, which is more in line with the fiscal deficit position.