Press Release 18/06/2021

PUBLIC SECTOR BUDGETARY STATISTICS 2019

The outstanding debt of the Public Administrations of the Basque Country fell from 15.0% on 31 December 2018 to 13.8% in 2019

In 2019, investments and capital transfers increased by 7.9%, reaching 1,728 million euros

On 31 December 2019, the outstanding debt of the Public Administrations of the Basque Country (made up of the Basque Government, the Provincial Councils and Municipal Administrations, together with their corresponding Autonomous Bodies and supra and infra-municipal Entities) reached 10,988.6 million euros, 13.8% of GDP (15.0% on 31 December 2018), according to data prepared by Eustat. The new liabilities acquired in 2019 increased to 1,131.9 million, while depreciations amounted to 1,706.1 million. It is worth pointing out that in the last financial year, total outstanding debt fell by 574 million euros, a drop of 1.2 percentage points.

The total outstanding debt of the Basque Government at the end of 2019 accounted for 78.7% of total outstanding debt, followed by Bizkaia (11.6%), Álava (5.3%) and lastly Gipuzkoa with the remaining 4.4%.

By institutions, both the Basque Government and the provincial administrations (Provincial Councils and Local Entities) registered positive non-financial budgetary balances, although they fell compared to 2018. Specifically, the Basque Government posted a positive balance of 394 million euros, a drop of 53 million euros on the 2018 figure. The three provinces maintained this trend with positive balances, but they were less favourable than those of the previous year.

Looking in detail at the income and expenditure of the Public Administrations of the Basque Country, total spending reached 19,186 million euros in 2019, a 6.2% increase compared to the previous year. Income reached 19,022 million, falling 0.1% compared to 2018.

Focusing on non-financial operations, there were upturns in both income and expenditure: income rose by 2.5% compared to 2018 and expenditure increased by 4.3%. As a result, the non-financial budgetary balance stood at 900 million euros in 2019, compared to 1,164 million euros in 2018.

Opposite trends were observed in financial operations: while financial income fell by 29.4% to 1,126 million euros, financial expenditure rose to 2,191 million euros, a 23.4% increase.

The growth in non-financial income was the result of the positive trend in current income (3.2%), which accounted for 93.3% of total income. Income from capital operations, which carries little weight, registered a drop of 41.2%.

Tax revenues in 2019, which accounted for 85% of total income, practically all performed positively compared with the previous year, except for corporate and municipal taxes. As a whole, tax revenues grew by 2.9%.

VAT and Income Tax had the most weight within tax revenues and provided 37.3% and 35.5% of all such revenue, respectively. Both showed a positive performance of 5.9% in the case of Income Tax and 2.6% in the case of VAT. In third place in terms of relative significance were Special Taxes, up 11%, and, lastly, Other Taxes, with an increase of 2.8%, although its weight was much lower (4.1%). Downward trends were seen in Corporate Tax, which accounted for 8.4% of taxes and posted a 12% downturn in this financial year, and Municipal Taxes, which were also down, though to a lesser extent (-1%).

Other Current Income, which includes taxes, transfers and equity income, accounted for 8.9% of total income from current operations and registered a 5.9% increase.

Current expenditure registered an increase of 4%. This rise was caused primarily by staff expenditure, which represented 20.5% of total expenditure and was up by 5.7% in respect of 2018. Other Current Expenditure performed positively, accumulating 31.5% of total expenditure and increasing by 4.2%. Lastly, Current Transfers were up by 2.4%.

Expenditure on Investments and Capital Transfers, however, which represented 9% of the total, grew by 7.9% compared with 2018, i.e. by 126 million euros.

For further information:

Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Basque Statistics Institute C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.es Tel: 945 01 75 62