The European statistical website Eurostat has published new data revealing how governments in the EU are spending their money according to various categories. Photo credit: Freepik
Brno, March 11 (BD) – Last week, Eurostat published data from 2020 revealing how much governments in various countries are spending on social protection, health and economic affairs compared with other EU Member States.
In 2020, EU general government expenditure stood at 53.1 % of GDP, a large increase from 2019 when it stood at 46.5% of GDP.
In general, ‘social protection’ remained the most important function of government expenditure. In 2020, government social protection expenditure in the EU totalled €2,943 billion (up €238 billion compared to 2019) and was equivalent to 22.0% of GDP, up from 19.3% in 2019.
The next most important functions in terms of government expenditure were ‘health’ and ‘general public services’, amounting to €1,073 billion (8.0 % of GDP) and €828 billion (6.2 % of GDP) respectively in the EU in 2020.
In the Czech Republic, the government is spending 14.4% of its GDP in social protection, compared to 22.7% for the Euro Area. However, the Czech government is investing more in health and in economic affairs, with 9.2% and 7.2% respectively, more than 1% above the EU average in both cases.
