The nominal budget balance, which according to April’s DEF would have been attained in 2020, would now not be achieved in 2021 either. The primary surplus, while rising gradually to 3.3 per cent of GDP in 2021, would be lower than last April’s estimates by 0.4 percentage points on average each year.
Interest payments are expected to grow steadily, reaching 3.8 per cent of GDP in 2021. The higher interest payments compared with April’s estimates, made on the basis of the interest rates foreseeable at the time, would amount to about € billion in 2019, almost € billion in 2020, and about € billion in 2021.