Germany cuts public debt to 2.15 trillion euros in 2015

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, shaved 24 billion euros ($27 billion) off its overall public debt burden to 2.153 trillion euros in 2015, the country's central bank, or Bundesbank, said on Thursday. Measured against the gross domestic product (GDP), that meant Germany's total public debt ratio fell to 71.2 percent last year from 74.7 percent in 2014, the Bundesbank calculated.
Under EU rules, a member state's overall debt must not exceed 60 percent of GDP. Nevertheless, the EU average stands at 86 percent and Germany has pledged to bring its own debt back below the 60-percent limit by 2020. Germany's public finances have been in surplus since 2014, thanks to the robustness of its domestic economy and low interest rates and the government is using the budget surplus to bring down its overall debt. The Bundesbank calculated that GDP growth of 1.6 percent last year accounted for 2.7 percentage points of the reduction in the overall debt ratio.