Schwerin (dpa/mv) - Regardless of the corona-related additional expenditure, the public sector debt burden in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania at the banks increased only slightly overall in 2021. As reported by the Statistical Office in Schwerin on Monday, the state, municipalities and social security funds in the north-east were 10.1 billion euros in debt in the non-public sector at the end of last year. The total public budget debt was thus 30 million euros or 0.3 percent higher than a year earlier.
However, there was an opposite development. The country's loans grew effectively by EUR 67 million to EUR 8.5 billion. At 0.8 percent, the increase was twice as high as the average for the federal states, which the statistical office stated at 0.4 percent. According to a spokeswoman, higher borrowing could be avoided by lending to state-owned special funds.
The country itself puts its debt at 11.8 billion euros by the end of 2021. In 2020 alone, the state parliament approved credit authorizations of 2.85 billion euros to deal with the corona pandemic, which, however, were only partially used.
Contrary to the state and federal trend, the municipalities in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania reduced their debts by a total of 37 million to 1.6 billion euros. This corresponds to a decline of 2.3 percent, while nationwide the debt of the municipalities and municipal associations increased by 0.6 percent.
As the reason for the opposite development in the north-east, the statistical office cited the significant decline in so-called cash advances, which municipalities use to bridge temporary liquidity bottlenecks. At the end of 2021, these still totaled 233 million euros, 68 million less than a year earlier. However, local authorities also increased long-term loans, although they benefited from the surprisingly high income from trade tax in the previous year. There is currently a risk of massive additional burdens due to the high energy costs, which are also causing difficulties for municipal energy suppliers.
According to the Statistical Office in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the social security systems under state supervision were still debt-free.
