Austerity lowers eurozone deficit in 2012
The budget deficit of the whole eurozone fell to 3.7 percent of the region's annual gross domestic.
BRUSSELS (AP) - Official figures show the austerity medicine pursued across a number of European countries is working, at least when it comes to reducing annual borrowing levels.
Eurostat, the European Union s statistics office, says Monday that the cumulative level of government deficits across the 17 EU countries that use the euro dropped in 2012 to around 353 billion euros ($460 billion) from 391 billion the year before.
As a result, the budget deficit of the whole eurozone fell to 3.7 percent of the region s annual gross domestic from 4.2 percent in 2011.
Though the spending cuts and tax increases are helping to reduce deficits, the eurozone s debt burden rose because economic growth has flat-lined. In 2012, eurozone debt was worth 90.6 percent of the region s annual GDP, up from 87.3 percent.
