REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on implicit liabilities with potential impact on public budgets
Date: 2019-02-13
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EU statistics, European accounting system, data collection, economic statistics, financial statistics, loan, national accounts, national budget, public-private partnership, statistical method

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 13.2.2019  COM(2019) 81 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on implicit liabilities with potential impact on public budgets  
 
 
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

on implicit liabilities with potential impact on public budgets 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1.  BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................................ 2 

2.  OVERVIEW OF THE EUROSTAT DATA COLLECTION IN THE CONTEXT OF COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 
2011/85/EU ............................................................................................................................................. 3 

2.1.  Reporting in the context of Article 14(3) of Directive 2011/85/EU ....................................... 3 

2.2. 

Timeliness ............................................................................................................................... 3 

2.3.  Description of indicators ......................................................................................................... 4 

2.3.1. 

Government guarantees ................................................................................................. 4 

2.3.2. 

Off-balance PPPs ............................................................................................................. 4 

2.3.3. 

Non-performing loans of General Government.............................................................. 5 

Liabilities of government controlled entities classified outside general government 

2.3.4. 
(public corporations) ....................................................................................................................... 5 

3.  RESULTS OF THE EUROSTAT DATA COLLECTION ON CONTINGENT LIABILITIES ...................... 6 

3.1.  Completeness and coverage of data ........................................................................................ 6 

3.1.1. 

Government guarantees ................................................................................................. 6 

3.1.2. 

Off-balance PPPs ............................................................................................................. 7 

3.1.3. 

Non-performing loans ..................................................................................................... 7 

3.1.4. 

Liabilities of government controlled entities classified outside general government ... 7 

3.2.  Comparability of data.............................................................................................................. 7 

4.  OTHER EUROSTAT DATA COLLECTIONS ...................................................................................... 8 

4.1.  Government contingent liabilities towards the financial sector .............................................. 8 

4.2.  Other Eurostat data sources..................................................................................................... 8 

5.  CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................ 9 

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1. 

BACKGROUND 

Article 11 of Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 on the European system of national and 
regional accounts in the European Union1 (hereinafter "ESA 2010") requires that by 
2018 the Commission shall submit a further report to the European Parliament and 
to the Council assessing the extent to which the information on liabilities published 
by  the  Commission  (Eurostat)  represents  the  entirety  of  the  implicit  liabilities, 
including  contingent  liabilities,  outside  government.  The  previous  report  issued  by 
the  Commission  (Eurostat)  on  this  issue  was  published  in  20152  and  presented 
existing,  at  that  stage,  information  on  public-private  partnerships  (PPPs)  and  other 
implicit liabilities, including contingent liabilities, outside general government. 

The liabilities are called contingent in the sense that they are by nature only potential 
and  not  actual  liabilities.  The  relevance  of  collecting  this  kind  of  information  is 
explicitly  recognised  by  ESA  2010,  in  Annex  A,  paragraph  5.11:”Although 
contingent  assets  and  contingent  liabilities  are  not  recorded  in  the  accounts,  they 
are important for policy and analysis, and information on them needs to be collected 
and presented as supplementary data. Even though no payments may turn out to be 
due  for  contingent  assets  and  contingent  liabilities,  a  high  level  of  contingencies 
may indicate an undesirable level of risk on the part of those units offering them.” 
It  should  be  further  underlined  that  contingent  liabilities  are  not  part  of  the 
government  debt  as  defined  in  Council  Regulation  (EC)  No  479/2009  on  the 
application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure3. 

This report provides an updated overview of the information available to Eurostat. It 
mainly  focuses  on  the  data  on  contingent  liabilities  collected  by  Eurostat  in  the 
context  of  the  reinforcement  of  the  EU  economic  governance  which  took  place  in 
2011 (the 'six-pack'), and in particular the data collection provided for in Directive 
2011/85/EU  on  requirements  for  budgetary  frameworks  of  the  Member  States4. 
Article 14(3) of this Directive laid down new statistical requirements on the Member 
States: 

"For  all  sub-sectors  of  general  government,  Member  States  shall  publish  relevant 
information  on  contingent  liabilities  with  potentially  large  impacts  on  public 
budgets,  including  government  guarantees,  non-performing  loans,  and  liabilities 
stemming  from  the  operation  of  public  corporations,  including  the  extent  thereof. 
Member  States  shall  also  publish  information  on  the  participation  of  general 
government  in  the  capital  of  private  and  public  corporations  in  respect  of 
economically significant amounts". 

1 Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of 
national and regional accounts in the European Union, OJ L 174, 26.6.2013, p.1. 

2 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1435910317596&uri=CELEX:52015DC0314 

3 Council Regulation (EC) No 479/2009 of 25 May 2009 on the application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit 
procedure annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community, OJ L 145, 10.6.2009, p. 1. 

4 Council Directive 2011/85/EU of 8 November 2011 on requirements for budgetary frameworks of the Member States, OJ 
L 306, 23.11.2011, p. 41. 

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The  data  collected  in  the  context  of  the  above  mentioned  Directive  are  the  main 
source of information related to government contingent liabilities in Member States. 
In  addition,  other  Eurostat  data  collections  (i.e.  Supplementary  table  for  financial 
crisis,  EDP  related  questionnaire)  provide  limited  and/or  confidential  information 
on particular types of contingent liabilities.  The scope of information available from 
these sources will also be presented in this report. 

2. 

OVERVIEW  OF  THE  EUROSTAT  DATA  COLLECTION  IN  THE  CONTEXT  OF  COUNCIL 
DIRECTIVE 2011/85/EU 

2.1. 

Reporting in the context of Article 14(3) of Directive 2011/85/EU 

The  implementation  of  the  statistical  requirements  of  the  Directive  was  widely 
agreed in the Task Force conducted by Eurostat in co-operation with Member States 
and  DG  ECFIN5.  The  final  report  of  the  Task  Force  provides,  inter  alia,  a  set  of 
templates  and  related  notes  indicating  the  methodology,  the  scope  of  compulsory 
information, the periodicity and the timeliness for national and Eurostat publication 
of data on contingent liabilities.  

liabilities, 

It  specifies  that  Eurostat  would  collect  and  publish  selected  indicators  related  to 
contingent 
i.e.  government  guarantees,  off-balance  public-private 
partnerships  (PPPs),  liabilities  of  government  controlled  entities  classified  outside 
general  government  (public  corporations)  and  non-performing  loans  (government 
assets).  The  Member  States  should  publish  the  same  indicators  at  a  national  level 
and,  in  addition,  the  data  on  the  participation  of  government  in  the  capital  of 
corporations. 

The  changes  needed  in  Eurostat's  collection  systems  were  introduced  by  way  of  a 
supplement  to  the  EDP  questionnaire,  under  the  provisions  of  Article  8(2)  d)  of 
Council  Regulation  (EC)  No  479/2009.  The  templates  and  the  implementation 
guidance  were  provided  in  Eurostat's  decision  of  22  July  2013  on  Supplement  on 
contingent  liabilities  and  potential  obligations  to  the  EDP  related  questionnaire6. 
This  decision  also  specifies  that  the  data  on  liabilities  of  government  controlled 
entities  classified  outside  general  government  (public  corporations)  would  be 
compiled  by  Eurostat  on  the  basis  of  information  already  collected  via  the 
Questionnaire on government controlled units classified outside general government 
introduced in 20117. 

All  indicators are to  be  reported to  Eurostat  in  millions  of national  currency at  the 
level  of  individual  general  government  subsectors.  The  metadata  clarifying  the 
completeness,  definitions,  use  of  estimations  or  timeliness  of  the  data  are  to  be 
provided to Eurostat alongside the data. 

2.2. 

Timeliness 

The  'Supplement  on  contingent  liabilities  and  potential  obligations  to  the  EDP 
related  questionnaire'  should  be  transmitted  to  Eurostat  annually  before  31 
December of  year T by the national statistical authority. Data should cover at least 
four years (T-1 to T-4) and on voluntary basis, the revisions of historical data (T-5 

5 Three Task Force meetings took place in 2012, namely on 29 June, 5 September and 6 November. 
6 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/1015035/2041337/ESTAT-decision-Suppl-on-conting-liab-EDP-Q.pdf/0b35165a-
ee53-470a-a15a-7beaa98aac8b 
7 The questionnaire received a positive opinion from the CMFB in 2011. Data are collected on an annual basis and the first 
data transmission took place in December 2012. 

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and  older).  The  Questionnaire  on  government  controlled  units  classified  outside 
general  government  should  be  provided  by  the  same  deadline  and  should  refer  to 
year T-1 (or T-2 if more recent data are not available). 

2.3. 

Description of indicators 

This section presents the agreed concepts and definitions for publication of data on 
contingent  liabilities  whereas  their  application  by  the  Member  States  in  the  data 
provided to Eurostat is described in section 3. It  is to be underlined that the below 
indicators  have  a  heterogeneous  nature  and  represent  different  types  of  potential 
impact on public finance. Additionally, in some cases, the same fiscal risk might be 
reflected by two or more indicators. For instance, when a government guarantees the 
liability of a government controlled entity classified outside general government, the 
potential risks are covered both by data presented for Guarantees and Liabilities of 
government  controlled  entities  classified  outside  general  government.  Therefore, 
evaluating  the  total  risk  for  public  finance  by  summing  up  the  indicators  could 
overestimate the potential impact. 

2.3.1.  Government guarantees 

Eurostat  collects  information  on  the  outstanding  amount  of  the  guarantees  granted 
by general government. Only guarantees provided to units classified outside general 
government are covered by reporting. A breakdown by subsectors is available except 
for  social  security  funds,  which  is  not  relevant  for  most  Member  States.  Data  are 
reported at nominal value. 

Data cover both one-off and standardised guarantees. A one-off guarantee is defined 
as individual, and guarantors are not able to make a reliable estimate of the risk of 
calls.  One-off  guarantees  are  linked  to  debt  instruments  (e.g.  loans,  bonds).    Data 
refer to  the total  stock of debt  guaranteed by  government  units, excluding the debt 
already  assumed  by  government,  as  recorded  in  ESA  2010  accounts.  Additional 
breakdown  is  available  for  one-off  guarantees  granted  to  public  corporations  and 
financial corporations.  

Standardised guarantees are guarantees that are issued in large numbers, usually for 
fairly small amounts, along identical lines. It is not possible to estimate precisely the 
risk of each loan being in default but it is possible to estimate how many, out of a 
large  number  of  such  loans,  will  default.  Examples  are  mortgage  loan  guarantees, 
student loan guarantees, etc. Data on standardised guarantees refer to the total stock 
of assets covered by this instrument.  

2.3.2.  Off-balance PPPs 

Public-private  partnership  (PPPs)8  recorded  off  the  balance  sheet  of  government 
means that the assets are not considered as economically owned by government and 
the gross-fixed capital formation is not recorded as an expenditure of government at 
the moment it is incurred. 

Eurostat collects data on the total outstanding liabilities recorded off-balance. They 
should  be  expressed  in  the  adjusted  capital  value  corresponding  to  an  initial 
contractual  capital  value  that  is  progressively  reduced  over  time  by  the  amount  of 
the "economic depreciation" calculated on the basis of estimates or actual data. The 

8 Public-private partnerships (PPPs) as defined by ESA 2010, Annex A, paragraph 20.276 and further detailed by the 
Eurostat Manual on Government Deficit and Debt, part VI.4. 

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adjusted capital value reflects the current value of the asset at the time of reporting. 
The  amount  represents  an  estimate  of  the  gross  fixed  capital  formation  and  debt 
impact in case government would have to take over the assets during the life of the 
contract.  Data  are  collected  for  general  government  and  by  all  sub-sectors  and  are 
reported at nominal value. 

2.3.3.  Non-performing loans of General Government 

Information  is  collected  on  the  stock  of  non-performing  loans  (government  assets) 
provided  by  general  government.  A  loan  is  non-performing  when  payments  of 
interest or principal are past due by 90 days or more, or interest payments equal to 
90  days  or  more  have  been  capitalized,  refinanced,  or  delayed  by  agreement,  or 
payments are less than 90 days overdue, but there are other good reasons (such as a 
debtor filing for bankruptcy) to doubt that payments will be made in full. Data are 
reported  at  nominal  value.  The  consolidated  figure  for  general  government  and 
details by sub-sectors are made available. 

2.3.4.  Liabilities  of  government  controlled  entities  classified  outside  general  government 

(public corporations) 

Government  controlled  entities  are  units  for  which  government  has  the  ability  to 
determine  the  general  policy  or  programme  (ESA  2010,  Annex  A,  paragraph 
20.18)9.  Those  government  controlled  entities  (public  corporations)  are  classified 
outside general government in most cases due to their behaviour as market units.  

Liabilities  of  government  controlled  entities  classified  outside  general  government 
(public  corporations)  are  defined  as  the  stock  of  liabilities  at  the  end  of  the  year, 
usually based on the business accounts of corporations. Member States can choose 
which  concept  to  use  for  the  reporting,  either  business  accounts  (including  all  the 
liabilities  from  the  financial  statements  of  the  company)  or  national  accounts 
concept  (excluding  other  accounts  payable).  If  available,  data  on  liabilities  for 
Maastricht debt items could also be reported. 

Data  cover  government  controlled  units  reporting  liabilities  higher  than  0.01%  of 
GDP  and  classified  according  to  ESA  2010  in  the  sectors  of  non-financial 
corporations and financial corporations and rest of the world. The data are reported 
for individual units and not for consolidated group accounts. 

Data provide a breakdown for the liabilities of units involved in financial activities10 
and  liabilities  of  units  involved  in  other  activities,  among  which  loss-making  non-
financial units. Furthermore, the controlling subsector of the general government is 
also identifiable from the data.  

9 A set of indicators is to be considered to determine government control (detail on each criterion is defined in ESA 2010, 
Annex A, paragraph 20.309). 
10 Liabilities of units involved in financial activities include the following NACE categories: (64) Financial service activities, 
except for Central Bank, (65) Insurance activities, (66) Activities auxiliary to financial services. 

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3. 

RESULTS OF THE EUROSTAT DATA COLLECTION ON CONTINGENT LIABILITIES 

The first  data transmission took  place in  December 2014 and since then the regular 
data  collection  has  taken  place  on  an  annual  basis.  Eurostat  has  systematically 
monitored  the  alignment  of  the  Member  States  with  the  Task  Force  guidelines, 
highlighted areas for improvement and encouraged the Member States to progress in 
respect  of  data  quality.  Paragraphs  below  present  the  status  with  regard  to 
completeness and coverage taking into account the results of 2017 data collection. 

All  Member  States  provided  to  Eurostat  the  'Supplement  on  contingent  liabilities 
and potential obligations', around the reporting deadline of end December 2017. On 
the  29th  of  January  2018,  Eurostat  published  the  figures  in  millions  of  national 
currency  and  in  percentage  of  GDP11  in  its  database12  together  with  the  related 
metadata and country specific footnotes13. An accompanying press release was also 
issued14. The main results are presented in Annex 1 of this report.  

3.1. 

Completeness and coverage of data 

All Member States provided the completed Supplement on contingent liabilities and 
potential  obligations  as  well  as  a  reply  to  the  Questionnaire  on  government 
controlled entities classified outside general  government. The completeness of data 
varies depending on the indicator and on Member States. 

3.1.1.  Government guarantees 

All Member States provided figures for the total government guarantees for general 
government  for  the  compulsory  years  2013-2016.  The  completeness  and  the 
coverage of data are regarded as  good for most Member States. For three Member 
States,  Greece,  France  and  Italy,  improvements  are  still  needed  in  terms  of 
availability and exhaustiveness of data for the local government subsector.  

For  the  Czech  Republic,  data  for  enterprises  included  in  the  general  government 
sector  are  not  fully  complete,  however  all  significant  entities  are  covered.  For 
Hungary, data of budgetary central and local government and large reclassified state-
owned  corporations  are  exhaustive,  but  there  is  no  data  collection  from  recently 
reclassified  statutory  guarantee  funds  and  reclassified  small  state-owned  or  local 
government-owned  public  corporations  and  non-profit  institutions  on  guarantees 
provided  and  there  is  no  plan  for  either  administrative  or  statistical  data  collection 
from  reclassified  small  units.  For  Finland,  data  are  not  fully  consolidated  for  local 
government. 

For  some  Member  States  (Denmark,  Croatia  and  Poland)  data  is  not  available  for 
standardised guarantees of local government; however the impact of the amounts is 
not expected to be significant for the total level of guarantees. 

11 GDP figures provided during the October 2017 Excessive Deficit Procedure notification are used for calculation of 
indicators. 
12 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/government-finance-statistics/data/database 
13 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/en/gov_cl_esms.htm and  
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/1015035/6611302/Contingent-Liabilities-Footnotes.pdf 

14  https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/8624398/2-29012018-AP-EN.pdf/ee504046-6ccc-4b79-8dfb-
7a5e1d38328f 

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3.1.2.  Off-balance PPPs 

All  Member  States  provided  data  on  off-balance  PPPs  for  the  compulsory  period 
2013-2016 The completeness and the coverage of data are regarded as good for most 
Member  States.  Improvements  are  needed  for  Slovenia  and  the  United  Kingdom 
where  data  for  local  government  are  not  available;  however  the  amounts  are  not 
expected to be significant. For Finland, data coverage might be also not exhaustive 
for local government. 

3.1.3.  Non-performing loans 

The completeness and the coverage of the data on non-performing loans still need to 
be significantly improved. 24 Member States provided data for the requested period 
2013-2016. Four Member States - Belgium, France, Croatia and Cyprus – still do not 
provide information on non-performing loans of general government.  

In  addition,  data  coverage  is  not  exhaustive  for  Italy,  Portugal  and  Finland.  For 
Greece,  data  does  not  cover  the  social  security  sector,  whereas  for  Spain  and  the 
United Kingdom, data coverage is not exhaustive for local government, however, the 
amounts are not expected to be significant.  

3.1.4.  Liabilities of government controlled entities classified outside general government 

All  Member  States  replied  to  the  Eurostat  questionnaire  on  government  controlled 
entities which is the basis for calculating the data series on liabilities of government 
controlled entities classified outside general  government.  For most Member States, 
data refer to 2016, expect for the Czech Republic, France, Germany and Austria and 
partly  Italy  and  Malta,  where  data  refer  to  2015.  A  majority  of  Member  States 
provided exhaustive data covering all controlling sub-sectors of general government, 
however, in some cases, improvements are still needed.  

For France and  Ireland data coverage is  not  fully  exhaustive for local  government.  
In  the  case  of  Greece  and  Belgium,  there  are  also  some  minor  units  controlled  by 
government  that  are  not  reported  in  the  data,  nevertheless  the  amounts  are  not 
expected  to  be  significant.  For  Poland,  the  data  does  not  include  units  employing 
less than 10 persons. 

3.2. 

Comparability of data 

Data on contingent government liabilities are country specific and closely linked to 
the economic, financial and legal structure of the Member State. Significant progress 
has been achieved in this data collection in terms of coverage and completeness of 
the data. Nevertheless data coverage  is  still not  fully exhaustive for some Member 
States,  as  described  above  and  further  indicated  in  footnotes  published  with  the 
Member State data. 

In general, the comparability for government guarantees, non-performing loans and 
off-balance  PPPs  is  satisfactory  whereas  it  is  limited  for  the  liabilities  of  public 
corporations.  

For  this  indicator,  in  addition  to  the  data  coverage  issues,  other  aspects  should  be 
taken into account when analysing the figures across Member States. Firstly, data for 
liabilities of public corporations are not consolidated, which means that part of the 
liabilities  of  these  units  could  be  towards  entities  in  the  same  company  group  and 
these  amounts  cannot  be  identified  from  the  data  reported.  Secondly,  the  data 
collection  only  refers  to  liabilities  without  balancing  them  with  the  assets.  This 

7 

 
 
aspect  is  very  important  in  the  case  of  financial  institutions,  which  normally  have 
both  significant  amounts  of  assets  and  debt  liabilities.  Furthermore,  some  Member 
States have more entities controlled by general government and involved in financial 
services than other, and therefore they report higher liabilities than those where such 
entities  do  not  exist  at  all,  or  are  very  few.  Additionally,  for  some  of  the  Member 
States,  a  large  part  of  the  liabilities  reported  by  financial  institutions  concern 
deposits  held  in  the  public  banks  by  households  or  by  other  kinds  of  private  or 
public entities. 

It  should  also  be  mentioned  that,  when  compiling  the  liabilities  of  public 
corporations,  Member  States  could  choose  which  concept  to  use  for  the  reporting, 
either  business  accounts  or  national  accounts  concepts.  Following  the  business 
accounts' definitions, the Member States included all the liabilities from the financial 
statements  of  the  company,  including  also  liabilities  related  to  the  item  'other 
accounts payable'. The majority of Member States reported the liabilities following 
this approach. Nevertheless, a few Member States (Spain Belgium, the Netherlands 
and Slovakia), reported Maastricht liabilities, notably data on liabilities for currency 
and deposits, debt securities, and loans (as defined in ESA 2010) and excluding the 
item 'other accounts payables'.   

4. 

4.1. 

OTHER EUROSTAT DATA COLLECTIONS 

Government contingent liabilities towards the financial sector 

information  on  government’s  contingent 

Since  October  2009  Eurostat  regularly  collects  (as  part  of  each  biannual  EDP 
notification15) 
the 
'Supplementary  tables  for  reporting  government  interventions  to  support  financial 
institutions'16.  It  provides  data  related  to  the  actual  and  potential  impacts  on 
governments’ deficit and debt of the support provided to financial institutions. 

liabilities,  via 

The information on government contingent liabilities linked to the financial sector is 
published on Eurostat’s website17, for each EU Member State, including a summary 
table with the aggregated data for the EU and euro area, and covers the years 2007-
2017. 

4.2. 

Other Eurostat data sources 

For over ten years some data on government guarantees, as well as off-balance sheet 
PPPs, have also been collected by Eurostat in the EDP questionnaire tables (which 
are not public) submitted alongside the EDP notification. The information collected 
is not for publication but for Eurostat's internal purposes of quality assurance of the 
EDP reporting. In addition, aggregated data on state guarantees are also collected as 
a part of the annual 'structure of government debt questionnaire', which is published 
at the Eurostat website at around T+6 months after the end of the reference period.18 

15  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/government-finance-statistics/excessive-deficit-procedure/edp-notification-tables  
16 A «supplementary table» is collected following Eurostat's decision of 15 July 2009 on the statistical recording of public 
interventions to support financial institutions and financial markets during the financial crisis. For more info see “Eurostat 
supplementary table for reporting government interventions to support financial institutions  : Background note (April 
2018)” https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/1015035/8441002/Background-note-on-gov-interventions-Apr-
2018.pdf/54c5e531-688b-427b-80a1-46e471f3a54b 

17http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/government-finance-statistics/excessive-deficit/supplemtary-tables-financial-crisis  
18 See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database, collection gov_dd_sgd.  

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5. 

CONCLUSIONS 

The  data  collection  on  contingent  liabilities  in  the  context  of  Council  Directive 
2011/85/EU has increased the availability of information on the implicit liabilities of 
general  government.  Prior  to  the  implementation  of  the  Directive,  only  partial  and 
mainly  non-public  data  on  guarantees  and  off-balance  PPPs  were  collected  by 
Eurostat.  Following the  Task Force report, the  Member States started to publish at 
national level and to provide Eurostat with relevant information in a harmonised and 
a comprehensive way. Since the first data collection in 2014, a number of Member 
States  reviewed  and  revised  the  figures  in  order  to  better  align  to  the  Task  Force 
guidelines. At this stage, for a great majority of Member States, complete and good 
coverage  data  are  available  for  most  of  indicators.  Eurostat  highly  appreciates  the 
efforts undertaken by the Member States and welcomes the results achieved.  

Nevertheless, as indicated above, data is not  yet  fully exhaustive in some cases.  In 
particular, progress is still needed with regard to data on non-performing loans and 
liabilities  of  government  controlled  entities  classified  outside  general 
the 
government.  Eurostat  will  continue 
the  Member  States  on 
completeness of information for these indicators. 

to  work  with 

Moreover, the availability of the accompanying metadata could be further improved 
in order to better inform users about the national characteristics, revisions and year-
to-year changes. The possibility of expanding the current metadata template will be 
investigated in the context of future data collections.  

To conclude, while contingent liabilities is a challenging domain of statistics, major 
improvements have been achieved in recent years. The new data collection is a step 
forward  toward  further  transparency  of  public  finances  in  the  European  Union,  by 
giving a more comprehensive picture of the EU Member States' financial positions. 
The  availability  of  comparable  and  harmonised  data  on  government  contingent 
liabilities is an important achievement, making the EU a frontrunner in this area in 
the international context. 

9 

 
 
Total 

Total 

One-off 

Standardised 

Government guarantees 

Entities involved 
in other activities 

Entities involved in 
financial activities 

Liabilities of government controlled entities 
classified outside general government 

Annex 1.Total general government contingent liabilities and non-performing loans in EU Member States, 2016 (% of GDP) 
Liabilities related 
to off-balance 
public-private 
partnerships 
(PPPs) 
0.1 
0.0 
0.0 
0.2 
0.0 
0.1 
0.7 
0.1 
0.3 
0.0 
0.1 
0.0 
0.8 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
1.7 
0.1 
0.4 
0.1 
0.0 
3.2 
0.0 
0.0 
3.1 
0.0 
0.0 
1.5 

51.7 
13.1 
10.8 
29.1 
100.7 
13.5 
42.8 
144.2 
25.7 
62.0 
10.4 
51.9 
89.8 
20.7 
5.9 
81.5 
14.3 
19.4 
103.9 
28.0 
34.7 
66.2 
7.4 
58.2 
1.3 
42.7 
43.8 
42.9 

38.0 
5.0 
0.0 
10.9 
96.4 
0.2 
36.4 
136.1 
22.7 
42.8 
5.2 
29.3 
76.2 
- 
0.1 
74.4 
9.3 
3.2 
88.3 
14.6 
21.9 
62.4 
3.9 
40.1 
0.3 
20.5 
19.4 
37.6 

13.7 
8.1 
10.7 
18.2 
4.3 
13.3 
6.4 
8.1 
3.0 
19.2 
5.2 
22.6 
13.6 
20.7 
5.8 
7.1 
5.0 
16.2 
15.6 
13.4 
12.8 
3.9 
3.5 
18.2 
1.0 
22.2 
24.4 
5.4 

10.3 
0.4 
0.3 
9.9 
14.3 
0.0 
1.9 
6.1 
7.7 
3.0 
2.6 
1.2 
9.1 
0.9 
0.2 
12.0 
7.9 
14.1 
3.3 
20.5 
6.5 
5.6 
0.4 
9.6 
0.0 
27.0 
10.5 
8.3 

10.9 
0.5 
0.3 
9.9 
14.3 
1.5 
1.9 
6.1 
7.7 
5.2 
2.6 
2.4 
9.4 
1.5 
0.9 
12.9 
8.1 
14.1 
3.7 
20.5 
7.1 
5.6 
2.2 
9.6 
0.0 
28.0 
10.5 
8.3 

0.6 
0.1 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
1.5 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
2.2 
0.0 
1.2 
0.3 
0.5 
0.7 
0.9 
0.2 
0.0 
0.4 
0.0 
0.7 
0.0 
1.9 
0.0 
0.0 
1.1 
0.0 
0.1 

Belgium 
Bulgaria 
Czech Republic 
Denmark 
Germany 
Estonia 
Ireland 
Greece 
Spain 
France 
Croatia 
Italy 
Cyprus 
Latvia 
Lithuania 
Luxembourg 
Hungary 
Malta 
Netherlands 
Austria 
Poland 
Portugal 
Romania 
Slovenia 
Slovakia 
Finland 
Sweden 
United Kingdom 
':' data not available;  '-' not applicable 

Non-performing 
loans 
(government 
assets) 

: 
0.1 
1.4 
0.3 
0.1 
0.0 
0.8 
0.2 
0.2 
: 
: 
0.0 
: 
0.2 
0.1 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
0.0 
1.1 
0.3 
1.5 
0.0 
5.9 
0.1 
0.1 
0.7 
0.0