By Lefteris Papadimas and Giuseppe Fonte ATHENS/ ROME, April 23 (Reuters) - Greece will no longer be the euro zone's most indebted country by the end of this year, with its public debt set to fall
Italy set to become euro zone's most indebted country, replacing Greece
Debt Dynamics in the Euro Zone: Italy and Greece
By Lefteris Papadimas and Giuseppe Fonte
Greece's Debt Decline
ATHENS/ROME, April 24 (Reuters) - Greece will cease to be the euro zone's most indebted country by the end of this year as its public debt will fall below Italy's, according to two sources and data from Italy's budget plan.
Greek debt is estimated to decline to around 137% of gross domestic product this year from 145.9% in 2025, two senior officials told Reuters.
Multi-Year Fiscal Plans
By contrast, Italy expects its debt to peak at 138.6% in 2026, up 1.5 percentage points from 137.1% of GDP in 2025, under the Treasury's multi-year budget plan published this week.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, both the officials said Greece would from this year cease to be the euro zone's most indebted country.
They said the new estimate for Greece's debt ratio would be included in the country's multi-year fiscal plan to be submitted to the European Commission at the end of this month.
Italy's Debt Trajectory
Italy's debt will be roughly stable at 138.5% in 2027, before declining to 137.9% in 2028 and to 136.3% the following year, its budget plan showed.
Comparative Debt Reductions
Greece's public debt - the highest in the euro zone over the last two decades - has shrunk by more than 60 percentage points to 145.9% of gross domestic product last year from a peak of 209.4% in 2020.
Italy cut its debt by some 17 percentage points over the same period.
Greece's Recovery Efforts
Greece, which is recovering from a decade-long financial crisis and three bailouts totalling about 280 billion euros ($327.10 billion), plans to repay ahead of schedule loans worth some 7 billion euros from its first bailout later in the year.
Factors Influencing Italy's Debt
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni often says that Italy's debt would have started to fall sooner and faster but for the negative impact of state-funded building incentives introduced under her predecessors, Giuseppe Conte and Mario Draghi.
Economic Growth Trends
After rebounding strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic, Italy has returned to its customary place among the euro zone's most sluggish performers.
The country posted three consecutive years of sub-1% growth from 2023 to 2025 despite a constant flow of billions of euros from the EU's pandemic recovery funds, a trend that the Treasury's budget plan said would persist through 2029.
Greece's Economic Performance
Greece's economy grew steadily by more than 2% over the last three years, outstripping the EU average, driven by investments, domestic demand and tourism.
($1 = 0.8560 euros)
(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas in Athens and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome, additional reporting by Gavin Jones in Rome, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Barbara Lewis)
