Austria’s national debt rose again in the first quarter of this year. As of the end of March, public debt amounted to €412.6 billion, according to Statistics Austria — an increase of €18.5 billion compared to the previous quarter. This pushes Austria’s debt-to-GDP ratio to 84.9 percent. At the end of last year, it stood at 81.8 percent.
As a result, the debt ratio — the ratio of public debt to economic output — has moved further away from the Maastricht target of 60 percent, explained Thomas Burg, Director General of Statistics Austria, in a press release on Monday. The public deficit for the first quarter of the year totaled €8.9 billion.
The largest increase was seen in the federal sector, which took on €18.6 billion in new liabilities. The state and municipal sectors also recorded a slight rise in debt. In contrast, the social insurance sector saw a reduction in liabilities. According to Statistics Austria, this short-term debt reduction in the social insurance sector outweighed the increase in the state and municipal sectors, meaning the federal government’s increase exceeded that of the public sector as a whole. However, due to frequent short-term financing, fluctuations in the social insurance sector are typical, and this reduction should be viewed only as a snapshot.
FPÖ calls for debt brake
The FPÖ blamed the three-party coalition of ÖVP, SPÖ, and NEOS: “This is another low point in a series of budget policy failures. This loser traffic-light coalition is accelerating Austria’s path into a debt state,” said FPÖ spokesperson for monetary and fiscal policy, Alexander Petschnig. Anyone who fails to pull the emergency brake with a quarterly deficit of €8.9 billion is acting negligently, he argued. Petschnig called for a constitutionally enshrined debt brake, strict spending discipline, and an “end to redistribution policies toward asylum chaos, climate extremism, and EU dictatorship.”
