Main aggregates of the general government sector (October EDP reporting), 2020–2023

With this release, revised statistics on main aggregates for the general government sector are published from 1995 on. In addition to routine annual revisions, which include the usual statistics updates and encompass the last four years, we revise national accounts estimates also within benchmark revisions. Such revisions are made by EU member states in the same year, every five years, for a longer time series of national accounts statistics. In this way, we ensure the comparability of statistics between countries and in time.

In this revision, the biggest change with an impact on net lending/net borrowing of the general government sector is the decrease in capital transfers related to the resolution of banks in 2013 (a decrease of EUR 1,289 million) and 2014 (EUR –335 million). The changed recording reflects the fact that the rescued banks continued to operate as good banks. In 2014, the value of the capital transfer related to repayment to bank deposit holders in Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina was also reduced (by EUR 51 million), because it turned out that the most recent imputed value was also too high. In 2016, the transfer of non-financial assets of Factor banka and Probanka to the Bank Assets Management Company was recorded as a non-financial transaction, which increased the deficit by EUR 67 million this year.

Other more noticeable changes with an impact on the current balance are: a change in the method of recording revenue from the sale of emission coupons (now as a three-year average of the values ​​recorded in the state budget), a changed recording of the contribution to finance the decommissioning of the Krško Nuclear Power Plant (from 1996–2016), inclusion of schemes for the production of electricity from renewable sources and high-efficiency cogeneration of heat and electricity in 2009–2018, and the transfer of related subsidies from subsidies on products to other subsidies on production from 2019 on, changed recording of the contribution for efficient use of energy and subsidies based on it (from 2010), the inclusion of tax deferrals in 2022 and 2023, and the change in recorded expenditures for covid vaccines in 2021-2023.

Among the changes without impact on net lending/borrowing, the largest is the transfer of a large number of taxes from local level revenue to central government revenue and the resulting increase in intra-sectoral transfers; in accordance with the European System of Accounts, tax revenues are attributed to the sub-sector that prescribes the tax and decides on its amount. Among the more notable are also: changes in the estimation of consumption of fixed capital and inventories of standing timber, reclassification of part of transport subsidies from other subsidies on production to subsidies on products, transfers between social transfers, transfers within the government and miscellaneous current transfers from 2015 on, changes in the structure of output (between payments for non-market production, and production for the market and own final consumption) in the entire time series and netting of individual capital transfers from 2014 on.

In addition to those mentioned, other changes were made which generally have a smaller impact on net lending/borrowing or are limited to individual years.

A regular revision was also carried out for 2020–2023; this had the greatest impact on the aggregates for 2023. In addition to the changes already mentioned, the deterioration of the balance (a total of EUR 88 million) was most influenced by the updated data sources on subsidies related to mitigating the energy crisis.

After the revision, the values of net lending/net borrowing of the general government sector in individual years changed in the range from –0.2% to +3.4% of GDP, and on average by 0.1% of GDP. 

Level of debt is revised from the end of 2007 on, in recent years almost exclusively due to the inclusion of deferred interest on EFSF loans.

Tables with the latest statistics are available in the SiStat Database.