Two senior Greek officials told Reuters that Greek public debtis estimated to reduce this year to about 137% of GDP, from 145% in 2025.
The Greece is expected to cease to be the most over-indebted country in the Eurozone by the end of the year, as its public debt is projected to fall below that of Italy, according to sources and data from Rome’s new multi-year fiscal plan.
Two senior Greek officials told Reuters that Greek government debt is estimatedto fall to about 137% of GDP this year, down from 145% in 2025.
In contrast, Italy projects its public debt to rise from 137.1% of GDP in 2025 to 138.6% in 2026, according to the Italian finance ministry’s multi-year fiscal plan released on Thursday.
“Greece will no longer be the euro zone’s most indebted country as of this year,” one of the two Greek officials told Reuters.
Greece to be overtaken by Italy as euro zone’s most indebted country in 2026, sources say https://t.co/couijkiflx https://t.co/couijkiflx
– Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) April 23, 2026
The new estimate for Greece’sdebt-to-GDP ratio will be included in the country’s new multi-year fiscal plan, which is expected to be submitted to the European Commission by the end of the month.
According to the Italian draft budget, Italy’s public debt is expected to remain essentially stable at 138.5% of GDP in 2027, before falling to 137.9% in 2028 and 136.3% the following year.
Since 2020, Greek government debt, the highest in the eurozone over the past two decades, has decreased by more than 45 percentage points, reaching 145% of GDP last year. Over the same period, Italy has reduced its debt by about 17 percentage points.
Greece, which is still recovering from its decade-long financial crisis and three bailout programs totaling about 280 billion euros, plans to repay early this year loans of about 7 billion euros from the first bailout program.
.
