Although Malta’s debt burden at just under 80% of GDP, is well in the mean of EU member states’ stakes, the rise of its debt burden from Q4 2012 is the fourth largest increase in the EU, a Eurostat release showed this week.

The highest ratios of government debt to GDP at the end of the first quarter of 2013 were recorded in Greece (160.5%), Italy (130.3%), Portugal (127.2%) and Ireland (125.1%), and the lowest in Estonia (10.0%), Bulgaria (18.0%) and Luxembourg (22.4%).

Compared with the fourth quarter of 2012, 21 Member States registered an increase in their debt to GDP ratio at the end of the first quarter of 2013, and six a decrease.

The highest increases in the ratio were recorded in Ireland (+7.7 percentage points - pp), Belgium (+4.7 pp) and Spain (+4.0 pp), and the largest decreases in Latvia (-1.5 pp), Denmark (-0.8 pp) and Germany (-0.7 pp).