European Government Interest Costs in 2023 - up 13%

 I've been a bit slow, because the Eurostat figures for Government Debt and Interest payments for 2023 were published over a month ago (22/05/2024). You can find the original data here but, as usual, I have extracted the most interesting figures in a Google Sheet that you can find here. 

The key figures are given in this figure.

Total debt for the 27 European Union countries reached €13.86 trillion - up 4.4% on the previous year. But it is important to realise that roughly half of this increase in debt can be directly attributed to the €290 billion in interest charges that we have collectively handed over to the markets, an amount that was up 13% in a single year. 

For some countries, the increases in interest charges have been eye watering. Interest charges in Estonia increased by 360%, and for Finland the charges more than doubled. 

Interestingly, for some countries, the interest costs actually dropped. This was true for France, which paid 5% less in interest charges despite having a debt level that increased by 5% to over $3.1 trillion. Mind you, the €48.3 billion that French tax payers had to hand over is still a substantial amount.  What is going on here? It appears that the banks who create the money that they use to purchase French governments bonds are quite happy to keep on extending credit. Maybe they think that later on, they will be able to get a good deal when French taxpayers finally have to start paying off the bill. 

The final column in the table gives the total cost of interest payments in the 24 years since 2000. I think that the total figures give food for thought. For the European Union, the total reached €6.57 trillion. But for individual countries, the numbers are also very impressive.