THEMES A-Z

Austrian Stability Programmes

Austrian Stability Programme for the period 2010 to 2014

In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1466/97, amended by Regulation 1055/2005, Member States are required to submit a Stability Programme (members of EMU) or a Convergence Programme (non-members). Austria herewith submits its Stability Programme for the period 2010 to 2014. The programme's structure reflects the agreements reached by the ECOFIN Council on 7 September 2010 (Code of Conduct).

The Austrian Federal Government

is pursuing a sustainable budgetary and financial policy that is reacting to cyclical fluctuations in an appropriate manner and balancing the budget over the business cycle,
pays attention to the joint budgetary responsibility of all regional authorities within the terms of art. 13 (2) Federal Constitutional Law (B-VG) and the Austrian Stability Pact ( ÖStP) and
has set a sustainable budgetary consolidation and a public debt reduction in the medium term as its highest priorities. In that context, growth and employment as well as distributional effects are to be taken into account.

Therefore, the Austrian Federal Government follows a three pillar strategy:

Reduction of the budget deficit and thereby a reduction of public debt in the medium term
Fostering economic growth and employment by strengthening future oriented investments
Continuation of structural reforms (see Austrian National Reform Programme (NRP) 2011)

The figures for public households presented in this Stability Programme are based on a growth forecast until the year 2014, which follows the medium term outlook by the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO) and the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF), respectively.

Indicators

	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014

Real GDP (rate of change in %)	2.0	2.5	2.0	2.1	2.2
Nominal GDP (rate of change in %)	3.5	4.5	4.1	3.8	4.0
HICP (in %)	1.7	2.9	2.4	2.0	2.0
Unemployment rate (Eurostat definition, in %)	4.4	4.4	4.5	4.5	4.4
Net lending of general government (in % of GDP)	-4.6	-3.9	-3.3	-2.9	-2.4
Gross debt (in % of GDP)	72.3	73.6	75.0	75.5	75.1
Cyclically-adjusted balance (in % of GDP)	-3.2	-2.8	-2.4	-2.1	-1.9
Structural balance (in % of GDP)	-3.2	-2.8	-2.4	-2.1	-1.9