• Macroeconomics The black decade of public debt: it shoots up by more than 660,000 million

1,311,298 million euros

.

It is the enormous figure in which the public debt closed 2020 and in that year, in which the covid pandemic unleashed the greatest economic crisis in peacetime, the liabilities of the Public Administrations as a whole rebounded by more than

120,000 million

.

The Bank of Spain has published historical figures this Wednesday, which show the high spending that the Government has been forced to incur to try to alleviate the severity of the crisis.

But they also show the serious problems of budgetary stability that Spain has had historically and, especially, since the financial crisis.

In fact, the increase registered during the past year is, in absolute terms, the third highest, not only in history but in recent years.

In 2012, in the middle of the second recession, the Government of Mariano Rajoy raised the debt by 147,000 million, and in 2009 the Executive of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero increased it by almost 130,000 million.

However, as important as the total amount is the figure in relation to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

And in that case,

the 2020 rebound is the highest given the collapse that the economy suffered

.

Specifically, the debt reached

117% of GDP

, which means that the liability already significantly exceeds the whole of the Spanish economy, and is well above

21 points above

95% of GDP at which 2019 closed The data is undoubtedly spectacularly alarming.

13 years of increases ... and those to come

The rebound in 2020, moreover, makes it already 14 years in which Spain's public debt has increased consecutively.

The period began in 2008, with the first blows of the financial crisis, and the incessant increase has caused the debt to go from 383,000 million to the mentioned 1.31 trillion.

That is, the rebound is almost one trillion euros.

And no less disturbing is the increase in terms of GDP: from 35% to over 120%.

And the forecast is that the trend will continue, since the economy will continue to need the support of the State.

But precisely for this reason, all national and international organizations stress that Spain especially needs a debt reduction program.

And what is more important: that it be a credible and acceptable plan and that the respective governments comply with it, as the Governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, has requested on more than one occasion.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

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