OREANDA-NEWS. November 13, 2009. A sustainability analysis of the EU public sector shows that Estonia's risks in the sphere are small and the adjustments needed to ensure sustainability are some of the smallest in the European Union (EU).

It appears from a recent analysis that if in the EU on the average the sustainability gap, the effort to put public finance on a sustainable path, is 6.5 percent of GDP, then for Estonia the same figure is 1.0 percent.

Bulgaria must make alomost as big adjustments. Hungary and Denmark may slightly slacken their finances, but all the other countries must make bigger efforts to ensure sustainability compared with Estonia.

In Latvia, for example, it is necessary to make 7.1 percent and in Lithuania 9.9 percent of financial adjustments of their GDP finances to ensure sustainability.

The necessary changes can be made both by increasing incomes as well as by contracting expenditures.

The European Commission also pointed out the low debt burden of the Estonian government sector, although the debt burden will grow this and the next year.

In 2020 there will be seven countries in the European Union with a debt burden of less than 60 percent of GDP. Besides Estonia such countries also include Finland, Sweden and Denmark.