The Italian government debt is the

public debt A country's gross government debt (also called public debt, or sovereign debt) is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit o ...

owed by the

government of Italy The government of Italy is in the form of a democratic republic, and was established by a constitution in 1948. It consists of legislative, executive, and judicial subdivisions, as well as a Head of State, or President. The Italian Constitutio ...

to all public and private lenders. This excludes unfunded state pensions owed to the public. , the Italian government debt stands at

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

2.1 trillion (131.1% of GDP). Italy has the lowest share of public debt held by non-residents of all eurozone countries and the country's

national wealth National net wealth, also known as national net worth, is the total sum of the value of a country's assets minus its liabilities. It refers to the total value of net wealth possessed by the residents of a state at a set point in time. This fi ...

is four times larger than its public debt.

Composition

The Italian public debit is in 2017 owned by the private sector only for the 6% of the total amount. This percentage decreased a lot from 1988, where this share was 57%.

History and government action

2010

Italy ran a budget deficit of 4.6% of

GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...

in 2010. Italian debt was almost 120% of GDP ( $2.4 trillion in 2010). This led investors to view Italian debt bonds as a risky asset.

2011

On 15 July and 14 September 2011, Italy's government passed austerity measures meant to save €124 billion. On 8 November 2011 the Italian bond yield was 6.74% for 10-year bonds, climbing above the 7% level where the country is thought to lose access to financial markets. On 11 November 2011, Italian 10-year borrowing costs fell sharply from 7.5% to 6.7% after Italian legislature approved further austerity measures and the formation of an emergency government to replace that of Prime Minister

Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies f ...

. The measures include a pledge to raise €15 billion from real-estate sales over the next three years, a two-year increase in the retirement age to 67 by 2026, opening up closed professions within 12 months and a gradual reduction in government ownership of local services. The interim government expected to put the new laws into practice was led by former European Union Competition Commissioner

Mario Monti Mario Monti, (born 19 March 1943) is an Italian economist and academic who served as the Prime Minister of Italy from 2011 to 2013, leading a technocratic government in the wake of the Italian debt crisis. Monti served as a European Commiss ...

2012

Government debt reached 127.0% of GDP in 2012.

2013

Government debt reached 130.4% of GDP in 2013.

2014

Government debt reached 131.1% of GDP in 2014. The Italian government has sought to privatise government assets in 2014 in order to reduce debt, including a sale of the Italian government's minority stake of Poste Italiane stock. In January 2014 the Italian government also agreed to offer citizens a chance to use a new voluntary disclosure scheme to repatriate assets held abroad, often in Swiss banks. Italy has offered several tax amnesties over the past few years, and a tax amnesty in 2012 resulted in €100 billion in assets being declared and made legal at a steeply discounted tax rate. In 2014, the

Bank of Italy The Bank of Italy (Italian: ''Banca d'Italia'', informally referred to as ''Bankitalia''), (), is the central bank of Italy and part of the European System of Central Banks. It is located in Palazzo Koch, via Nazionale, Rome. The bank's cur ...

estimated that Italians held €180 billion in undeclared assets abroad, a figure that was three times as high as in 2004.

References

{{Italy topics Government of Italy Italy Government finances in Italy Eurozone crisis