Debt Policy Implementation in Eu Countries: Lessons for Ukraine

Abstract

Introduction. The implementation of debt policy in the EU countries is associated with a range of problems, in particular, rising social spending, and increasing budget deficits. In recent years, Member States have had a negative impact on the debt crisis, which is primarily due to unbridled fiscal policies of individual countries and the banking crisis. Purpose. The article is devoted to issues of implementation of debt policy in the EU countries and the problems of overcoming the consequences of the debt crisis, which began in 2008 and extends to today. An estimation of the possibilities of using this experience in Ukraine is made considering the fact that the country is on the verge of a debt crisis. Results. It has been determined that the sovereign debt crisis is a crisis of confidence for the EU, in particular the euro zone. This required adjusting both the socio-economic and financial policies of the EU. It can be argued that the Stability and Growth Pact did not take place and that now Europe needs to form a qualitatively new budget system that could more effectively cope with the adverse economic consequences or even the failure of a Member State to fulfill its obligations. It has been determined that one of the main items of budget expenditures of the European Union countries is government debt service costs. Public debt management, above all, is carried out through government debt securities. There is a tendency to reduce the share of shortterm public debt and increase the long-term, which provides reduction of budget expenditures for servicing public debt. In particular, in some EU countries there are strict rules that determine the conditions for external borrowing, for example, new loans should not exceed the annual amounts of debt to be repaid. Conclusions. It has been established that a number of measures have been implemented in the EU countries to address the consequences of the debt crisis, in particular: diversification of sources of state debt financing and optimization of terms of circulation of government debt securities; fiscal consolidation; increase maturity of debt obligations and optimize the structure of the public debt portfolio. It is concluded that the measures taken by the EU countries to overcome the consequences of the debt crisis may be useful for Ukraine and, in fact, is a step-by-step guide for the presentation of crisis phenomena, taking into account positive and negative experiences.