Government debt during each government's tenure

27 governments, ranked by how the government debt changed from their first day in office, next to the European Union over the same months. Politare shows what happened during a tenure; it does not claim the office-holder caused it.

#	Government	Country	In office	Total	vs EU	Per year	Chart
1	Brian Cowen	Ireland	7 May 2008 – 9 Mar 2011	+59.9 pp Q1 2008 → Q4 2010	+42.5 pp EU +17.4 pp	+21.8 pp/yr
2	Antonis Samaras	Greece	20 Jun 2012 – 26 Jan 2015	+41.3 pp Q1 2012 → Q4 2014	+37.1 pp EU +4.2 pp	+15.0 pp/yr
3	KIDISO Giorgos Papandreou	Greece	6 Oct 2009 – 11 Nov 2011	+39.5 pp Q3 2009 → Q3 2011	+32.9 pp EU +6.6 pp	+19.8 pp/yr
4	Mariano Rajoy	Spain	20 Dec 2011 – 2 Jun 2018	+35.3 pp Q3 2011 → Q1 2018	+35.2 pp EU +0.1 pp	+5.4 pp/yr
5	José Sócrates	Portugal	12 Mar 2005 – 21 Jun 2011	+34.0 pp Q4 2004 → Q1 2011	+20.2 pp EU +13.8 pp	+5.4 pp/yr
6	Pedro Passos Coelho	Portugal	21 Jun 2011 – 26 Nov 2015	+31.3 pp Q1 2011 → Q3 2015	+26.1 pp EU +5.2 pp	+7.0 pp/yr
7	Dimitris Christofias	Cyprus	28 Feb 2008 – 28 Feb 2013	+28.7 pp Q4 2007 → Q4 2012	+6.1 pp EU +22.6 pp	+5.7 pp/yr
8	Andrius Kubilius	Lithuania	26 Nov 2008 – 22 Nov 2012	+26.5 pp Q3 2008 → Q3 2012	+5.2 pp EU +21.3 pp	+6.6 pp/yr
9	Borut Pahor	Slovenia	21 Nov 2008 – 10 Feb 2012	+24.9 pp Q3 2008 → Q4 2011	+6.2 pp EU +18.7 pp	+7.7 pp/yr
10	UMP Nicolas Sarkozy	France	16 May 2007 – 15 May 2012	+24.5 pp Q1 2007 → Q1 2012	+6.9 pp EU +17.6 pp	+4.9 pp/yr

Showing 10 of 168 tenures.

Sorted by total, highest first. Every row is indexed to the last quarter complete before the first day in office ("from" marks a start that had to move because that period had no data, or because the period cut it); the European Union is measured over the same months. Levels are per cent changes, rates are differences in pp; "per year" compounds levels and divides rates. Tenures with under 12 months, or under three observations, are left out. % of GDP · Eurostat (gov_10q_ggdebt), general government consolidated gross debt · country data · as of Sep 2026.