MADRID – Spain’s budget deficit hit a new record in November. The public debt rose to more than 1.3 trillion euros. With this amount, the debt has risen by 10.5 percent in one year and is currently 114.6 percent of GDP.
The exact national debt of Spain in November 2020 was 1,312,590 million euros. According to the data released by the Banco de España on monday this is a new record in the history of Spain. This means that government debt in Spain has increased by more than 10 percent in a year, from 1.187 trillion euros in November 2019.
Corona pandemic crisis
The main reason why Spain’s public debt has hit a new record lies in the health crisis that the country has been in since March 2020. Spain puts itself deeply in debt to mitigate the social and economic impact of the pandemic. Before the outbreak of the corona crisis, the Spanish government expected the debt to fall to 94.65 percent of GDP by 2021. At the end of 2019, Spain closed with a government debt of 95.5 percent of GDP. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects government debt to rise to 121.3 percent of GDP this year and fall to 120.4 percent next year.
Debt Social Security
The debt of the Social Security has also increased to more than 85 billion euros, more than 30 billion euros more than in the same month of 2019. This increase is the result of loans provided by the government to guarantee the payment of pensions. In connection with the corona crisis, there is more demand for benefits and the government has also released extra money for this.
