While the European economy may be moving in a straight line from upper left to lower right, the same can not be said for the level of debt in Europe, which has taken on the inverse trajectory. As per the just released quarterly update of Euro area government debt, in Q1 2013, total government debt in Europe as a % of GDP just hit a new all time high of 92.2%. This compares to 90.6% in the previous quarter, and up from 88.2% in Q1 2012.
The proud Q1 debt-to-GDP outliers, where the local economies are expected to continue plunging and thus send the stock markets (if mostly that in the US) surging, are the following:
- Euroarea: 92.2%, up from 88.2% a year ago
- Greece: 160.5%, up from 136.5% a year ago
- Italy: 130.3%; up from 123.8% a year ago
- Portugal: 127.2%, up from 112.3% a year ago
- Ireland: 125.1%, up from 106.8% a year ago
- Spain: 88.2%, up from 73.0% a year ago
- Netherlands: 72.0%, up from 66.7% a year ago
Not everything was a continuing balance sheet disaster. Three countries had barely any sovereign debt/GDP with Estonia best at 10.0%, Bulgaria second at 18.0% and Luxembourg third at 22.4%, although one wonders just how bad the last one is net of all the "lies" its now former Prime Minister may have been sweeping under the rug.
The full breakdown:
[5]
The sequential change... or just make the increase:
[6]
And the annual change... ort just make the increase:
[7]
Source: Eurostat [8] [8]