However, as social protection benefits expenditure represented 26.8% of the EU’s GDP, this represents a drop of 0.1 percentage points (pp) compared with the previous year. This information comes from the early estimates on social protection expenditure published recently by Eurostat.
Among EU countries for which 2023 estimates are published, social protection benefits expenditure as a percentage of GDP was highest in France (31.3% of GDP), Finland (31.2%) and Austria (29.7%), while it was lowest in Ireland (12%), Malta (13.2%) and Estonia (15.3%).
In 2023, social protection benefits expenditure increased in all EU countries for which estimates are published. The largest increases between 2022 and 2023 were recorded in Slovakia (+18.9% compared with 2022), Poland (+18.4%) and Hungary (+15.2%), while the smallest increases were registered in Denmark (+2.3%), Italy (+3.5%), Estonia (+3.8%) and Latvia (+4.0%).
