General government expenditure in 2011
Focus on the functions ‘social protection’ and ‘health’
Issue number 9/2013

EUROSTAT
Author: Laurent FREYSSON, Laura WAHRIG

In 2011, EU-27 general government expenditure amounted to 49.1 % of GDP. Based on the latest available expenditure data by economic function for 2011, more than half was devoted to the functions ‘social protection’ and ‘health’, which accounted for 19.6 % and 7.3 % respectively of GDP (slightly down compared with 19.9 % and 7.5 % respectively in 2010). The other functions also comprising a large share of government expenditure are ‘general public services’ (6.6 % of GDP), ‘education’ (5.3 % of GDP) and ‘economic affairs’ (4.0 % of GDP). This publication analyses trends in the structure of general government expenditure by socio-economic function (according to the Classification of the Functions of Government – COFOG) and puts a special focus on health and social protection expenditure.

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