Government debt - private and public investment

Having been relatively stable at around 60 % of gross domestic product (GDP) from 2000 to 2008, in line with EU fiscal rules, the aggregate government debt ratio sky-rocketed to 73 % of GDP in 2009 and kept rising until 2014, reaching 87 %. Since then debt has fallen and stood at 81.6 % in 2017. In Cyprus, Slovenia, Portugal, Spain and Greece increases exceeded 50 percentage points (pp), while debt decreased only in Malta and Germany (by 11.7 and 1.3 pp respectively). In 2017, only in Estonia and in Luxembourg was debt lower than 25% of GDP, while in 2008 this was the case in seven Member States (Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia and Slovenia).
The same period saw total investment contract in 23 Member States. It expanded only in Austria, Sweden and Malta, and investment in the EU is still below pre-crisis levels.