{"id":51137,"date":"2026-05-23T21:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T21:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/51137\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T21:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T21:53:12","slug":"imf-says-european-unions-public-debt-to-be-on-unsustainable-path-without-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/51137\/","title":{"rendered":"IMF Says European Unions Public Debt to Be on Unsustainable Path without Action"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.islamtimes.com\/en\/news\/1281861\/imf-says-european-union-s-public-debt-to-be-on-unsustainable-path-without-action\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/n01281861-b.jpg\" alt=\"IMF Says European Union\" s=\"\" public=\"\" debt=\"\" to=\"\" be=\"\" on=\"\" unsustainable=\"\" path=\"\" without=\"\" action=\"\" title=\"IMF Says European Union\" class=\"img-responsive\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>            Islam Times &#8211; European Union countries will face large bills for defence, energy and pensions in the next 15 years, the International Monetary Fund told EU finance ministers on Saturday, suggesting a mix of reforms, consolidation and joint borrowing as a way \u2060to manage \u2060that.&#8221;If left unchecked, public debt will be on an unsustainable path. Under unchanged policy, debt of the average European country would reach 130 percent of GDP by 2040 &#8211; roughly doubling from today,&#8221; the IMF said in a paper used as a basis for the ministers&#8217; discussions at an informal meeting in Nicosia, according to The Economic Times.<\/p>\n<p>The paper said that to prevent such a scenario, EU countries must improve incentives for citizens to move around the 27-nation bloc to find work and for companies \u2060to hire them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The EU should also integrate its energy markets, make it easier for citizens&#8217; savings to flow across the bloc into profitable investments and unify laws that now \u2060often differ from country to country.<\/p>\n<p>Pension reforms and a higher retirement age would also help, as would government guarantees for riskier investments in low-carbon and climate-resilient projects that would help attract private capital to them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is one of those areas where there are differences of opinion, but it&#8217;s certainly one of the areas which we will be discussing in the coming months,&#8221; the chairman of \u2060euro zone finance ministers Kyriakos Pierrakakis told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>The IMF said that even with reforms, most EU countries would still need fiscal consolidation to put debt on a declining path, though the more ambitious the reforms, the less consolidation would be needed.<\/p>\n<p>It said that if governments did not act now, the problem would only get worse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The &#8216;muddling-through&#8217; approach that many countries have adopted so far is reaching its limits, and a more strategic response seems essential to respond to rising spending pressures,&#8221; the IMF said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Making changes in a piecemeal way, or tinkering at the margins, is likely to be inadequate,&#8221; it said.&#13;\n  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Islam Times &#8211; European Union countries will face large bills for defence, energy and pensions in the next&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30734,631,24915,1120,2494,9487,30732,30739,30737,4027,2581,2008,88,39,15,30554,2221,4033,2983,7338,2036,344,373,30738,30731,30741,10620,30736,6350,30733,1123,1118,8289,6277,30729,7422,6633,24050,6461,30735,7397,1121,4026,4024,10619,3035,30730,30740,13928,9489,12706],"class_list":["post-51137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-europe","tag-30734","tag-a","tag-action","tag-and","tag-as","tag-be","tag-bills","tag-borrowing","tag-consolidation","tag-countries","tag-debt","tag-defence","tag-energy","tag-eu","tag-european","tag-face","tag-finance","tag-for","tag-fund","tag-imf","tag-in","tag-international","tag-islam","tag-joint","tag-large","tag-manage","tag-ministers","tag-mix","tag-monetary","tag-next","tag-of","tag-on","tag-path","tag-pensions","tag-public","tag-reforms","tag-s","tag-saturday","tag-says","tag-suggesting","tag-that","tag-the","tag-times","tag-to","tag-told","tag-union","tag-unsustainable","tag-way","tag-will","tag-without","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}