Italy, the country with the most debt in the Eurozone? Forecasts until the end of the year. Expected to replace Greece
Greece will no longer be the eurozone's most indebted country by the end of this year, as its public debt falls below that of Italy, according to two sources and data from Italy's budget plan. Greek debt is estimated to fall to about 137% of gross domestic product this year from 145.9% in 2025.
By contrast, Italy expects its debt to peak at 138.6% in 2026, 1.5 percentage points higher than 137.1% of GDP in 2025, according to the Treasury's multi-year budget plan published this week.
The new estimate for Greece's debt ratio will be included in the country's multi-year fiscal plan to be presented to the European Commission later this month. Italy's debt will be roughly stable at 138.5% in 2027, before falling to 137.9% in 2028 and 136.3% the following year, its budget plan showed.
Greece's public debt - the highest in the euro zone over the past two decades - has shrunk by more than 60 percentage points to 145.9% of gross domestic product last year from a peak of 209.4% in 2020. Italy reduced its debt by about 17 percentage points over the same period.
Greece, which is recovering from a decade-long financial crisis and three bailouts totaling about 280 billion euros, plans to repay loans worth about 7 billion euros from its first bailout later this year.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni often says that Italy's debt would have started to fall faster if it weren't for the negative impact of state-funded construction incentives introduced under the governments of her predecessors, Giuseppe Conte and Mario Draghi.
After recovering strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic, Italy has returned to its usual place among the eurozone's slowest. The country is set to record three consecutive years of growth below 1% from 2023 to 2025, despite a steady flow of billions of euros in EU funds for pandemic recovery, a trend that the Treasury's budget plan said would continue until 2029.
Greece's economy has grown consistently by more than 2% over the past three years, exceeding the EU average, driven by investment, domestic demand and tourism.
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