Bulgaria<\/b> remains one of the European<\/b> Union members with the lowest government debt<\/b> relative to GDP<\/b>, yet it also recorded one of the steepest increases in recent quarters. According to Eurostat, at the end of the second quarter of 2025, the gross government debt<\/b> to GDP<\/b> ratio in the euro area rose to 88.2%, up from 87.7% in the previous quarter and from 87.7% a year earlier. Across the EU as a whole, the ratio increased to 81.9% from 81.5% three months prior and from 81.2% in the same period of 2024.<\/p>\n
Within this context, Bulgaria<\/b>\u2019s debt<\/b> remains comparatively low at 26.3% of GDP<\/b>, with only Estonia (23.2%) and Luxembourg (25.1%) reporting smaller ratios. Meanwhile, Greece (151.2%), Italy (138.3%), France (115.8%), Belgium (106.2%) and Spain (103.4%) recorded the highest debt<\/b> levels in the second quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n
Despite the low level, Bulgaria<\/b> saw one of the most significant quarterly increases in the debt-to-GDP ratio, rising by 2.6 percentage points compared to the first three months of 2025. This surge was only surpassed by Finland, with a 4.3-point increase, and Latvia, with a 2.7-point rise. Year-on-year, Bulgaria<\/b>\u2019s debt<\/b> ratio grew by 4.3 points from the second quarter of 2024, a change exceeded only by Finland, Poland, and Romania.<\/p>\n
Looking at absolute figures, Bulgaria<\/b>\u2019s government debt<\/b> in 2024 stood at 48,851 million leva, or 23.8% of GDP<\/b>, according to the National Statistical Institute. The overall budget deficit reached -6,240 million leva, equivalent to 3% of GDP. The \u201cCentral Government\u201d subsector reported a deficit of -5,320 million leva (-2.6% of GDP<\/b>), the \u201cLocal Government\u201d subsector a deficit of -849 million leva, and the \u201cSocial Security Funds\u201d subsector -71 million leva.<\/p>\n
Bulgaria<\/b>\u2019s economy grew in real terms by 3.4% in 2024 compared to the previous year. Nominal GDP<\/b> for the year reached 204,907 million leva, with gross value added amounting to 178,772 million leva. These figures illustrate the dual reality Bulgaria<\/b> faces: a low overall debt<\/b> level but a sharply rising debt<\/b> trajectory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bulgaria remains one of the European Union members with the lowest government debt relative to GDP, yet it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,179,18,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-137130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}