Athens, Greece. Greece is expected to cease being the euro zone’s most indebted country by the end of this year as its public debt ratio falls below Italy’s, according to two sources and data from Italy’s budget plan.
Greek debt outlook
Greek debt is estimated to decline to around 137% of gross domestic product this year from 145.9% in 2025, two senior officials told Reuters. Speaking on condition of anonymity, both officials said Greece would from this year cease to be the euro zone’s most indebted country.
They said the new estimate for Greece’s debt ratio would be included in the country’s multi-year fiscal plan to be submitted to the European Commission at the end of this month.
Italy’s projections
Italy expects its debt to peak at 138.6% in 2026, up 1.5 percentage points from 137.1% of GDP in 2025, under the Treasury’s multi-year budget plan published this week.
Italy’s debt will be roughly stable at 138.5% in 2027, before declining to 137.9% in 2028 and to 136.3% the following year, its budget plan showed.
Debt trends and crisis legacy
Greece’s public debt, the highest in the euro zone over the last two decades, has shrunk by more than 60 percentage points to 145.9% of gross domestic product last year from a peak of 209.4% in 2020. Italy cut its debt by some 17 percentage points over the same period.
Greece, which is recovering from a decade-long financial crisis and three bailouts totalling about 280 billion euros ($327.10 billion), plans to repay ahead of schedule loans worth some 7 billion euros from its first bailout later in the year.
Italian government view
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni often says that Italy’s debt would have started to fall sooner and faster but for the negative impact of state-funded building incentives introduced under her predecessors, Giuseppe Conte and Mario Draghi.
How do the latest debt projections affect your view of fiscal stability in the euro zone?