Analytics, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services

The five countries with higher shares of public debt held by non-residents are Cyprus (76.3%), Finland (76.1%), Lithuania (75.9%), Slovenia (75.8%) and Austria (73%).

Eurostat noted that significant differences can be observed across the EU regarding the sector in which government debt is held. For example, the share of public debt held by non-residents is just 8.8% in Malta and 25.4% in the United Kingdom.

The largest proportion of debt held by the resident financial corporations sector was recorded in Denmark (63.3%), ahead of Malta (62.3%), Luxembourg (62.1%) and Italy (60.4%).

Resident financial corporations held 24.8% of the Latvian government debt in 2015, the fifth lowest level among the EU member states for which data are available, and the share of the Latvian public debt held by resident non-financial sectors was 3.3%.