Italy: public debt rises further in the first quarter of 2026; Greece is catching up

Brussels – Italy’s public debt continues to rise, and the trend on course to catch up with and overtake Greece, expected for next year and which 2026 appears to confirm, is set to continue, according to Eurostat’s projections. The figures released today (21 July) by the European Statistical Office on the quarterly trend in debt relative to Gross Domestic Product show an increase of 1.8 per cent in Italy in the first quarter of the year, compared with the last quarter of the previous year. Conversely, Greece recorded a 2.6 per cent decrease at the end of the January–March 2026 period compared with the October–December 2025 period. As a result, the Italian Republic’s debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 138.9 per cent but is rising, while that of the Hellenic Republic stands at 143.5 per cent but is decreasing.

The figures on the trend in public debt can be explained by different overall trajectories: Italy’s is rising, while Greece’s is decreasing. The quarterly figure reflects an overall trend characterised by difficulties in controlling expenditure on the one hand, and efforts to reduce the deficit on the other. Looking at the annual figures, it emerges that  between March 2025 and March 2026, the debt-to-GDP ratio in Italy rose by 1.7 per cent, while in Greece it fell by 9.4 per cent.

Of course, Italy is not alone on this less-than-admirable path: according to the European Statistical Office, in general, at the end of the first quarter of 2026, the ratio of general government gross debt to GDP in the euro area stood at 88.9 per cent, up from the 87.7 per cent recorded at the end of the fourth quarter of 2025. This is a sign that someone else is increasing spending rather than cutting it (in this particular ranking, Italy is ninth, behind Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Ireland, Croatia, Austria, France, and Poland). Still, none of these countries has the level of debt that Italy can boast.

The Eurostat figures serve as a further warning to the Meloni government to take urgent action and follow the Greek model for debt reduction. This is because the initial indicators available for 2026 point to a scenario in which Italy will rank first in the eurozone and the EU in terms of debt levels.