Contingent assets and potential liabilities of the EU Member States

31.3.2015

Question for written answer E-005204/2015
to the Commission
Rule 130
Bernd Lucke (ECR)

A country’s contingent liabilities, such as guarantees for third-party loans, constitute potential public expenditure that is not actually recorded in the national debt reports of the Member States. Since January 2015, Eurostat has been reporting Member State data on incurred liabilities that are recorded off‑balance sheet of government. Eurostat stresses in this context, however, that, owing to differences in the nature and scope of the respective entries, it is not possible to make a comparison between the countries. This and the lack of an estimation of the effect of this potential public expenditure on the public debt of the Member States cast doubt on the report’s informative value.

What effect, broken down according to Member States and assumed scenarios, does the Commission expect the contingent liabilities to have on national debt and, in addition to the information provided by the Member States within the framework of the European Semester, what data is it using to support that estimation?

For what reason does the data on government guarantees not include guarantees issued within the framework of the EFSF, and by what amount, listed by Member State, does that data increase if this were to be taken into account?