Firstpost · published 17 h ago ·
found by searching “Lithuania economic collapse EU”
Which European Country Will Go Bankrupt First | Europe's Economic Crisis
Which European Country Will Go Bankrupt First | Europe’s Economic Crisis | The Blueprint
What the site found
Not propaganda · agenda: Lithuanian fiscal crisis
Belief the Pravda network pushes: Lithuania's government is recklessly borrowing and spending, driving the country toward financial crisis and EU punishment.
The video compares Eurostat debt-to-GDP data across European countries and argues France is the likeliest source of the next sovereign debt crisis, while Greece, Portugal and Spain are improving.
The video never mentions Lithuania, its government or EU punishment of Lithuania; it is a data-based explainer on European sovereign debt focused on France, so it does not push the Lithuanian fiscal crisis agenda or the others.
The Pravda stories it echoes
Closest stories from the Pravda network, by meaning. Each links to the site’s comparison with trusted Lithuanian news.
8 days ago · Due to increasing EU deficit, Lithuania may face EU infringement procedure
M low
F low
3 verified differences
19 days ago · Politico: A perfect political storm is approaching the EU
M low
F low
2 verified differences
13 days ago · EU - economic dead man: Latvia as an example
16 days ago · France, with state debt at 119% of GDP and 410,000 protesters in streets, generously offers Europe a nuclear umbrella
Transcript (en, 298 lines)
0:00 There is a race going on in Europe right
0:02 now. A race over which major country is
0:06 going to go bankrupt first. Let's
0:08 understand this with data. If you ask
0:10 someone which European country is
0:12 closest to financial ruin, they will
0:14 give you the same answer every single
0:15 time. Greece or maybe Italy. And
0:17 honestly, it makes sense why people
0:19 think that. If you pull up the official
0:22 Euro stat data right now, Greece sits
0:24 with a national debt of 143.5%
0:29 of its entire GDP. Italy is right behind
0:32 them at nearly 139%. These are
0:35 astronomical numbers. Experts say that
0:38 once a country crosses 100% debt to GDP,
0:41 the red sirens start blaring. But here
0:44 is the massive twist that almost nobody
0:47 is talking about. The headline debt
0:49 number is only half the story. The real
0:52 danger in sovereign economics isn't just
0:54 how much debt you have today. It's also
0:57 the trajectory. It's whether that debt
0:59 is going down or spiraling out of
1:01 control. When you look at the exact same
1:04 official Euroat data set and look at how
1:06 these numbers changed over the past
1:08 year, the map completely flipped. Greece
1:11 didn't add more debt. Its debt to GDP
1:14 ratio actually dropped by a massive
1:17 9.4%. four percentage points. Cyprus
1:19 [music]
1:19 fell by over seven points. Portugal
1:22 shrank by almost four points. Spain is
1:24 down nearly two points. The countries
1:26 that almost blew up the global economy
1:28 back in 2011 are quietly getting their
1:31 houses in order. So where did the fire
1:33 move? Well, look at the top of the
1:34 chart. Finland's debt ratio jumped by
1:37 5.5 percentage points. Romania jumped by
1:40 4.3. And right behind them sits France,
1:43 jumping four full percentage points in a
1:46 single year to reach 117.6%
1:49 of its GDP. So the epicenter of Europe's
1:53 next debt crisis has quietly moved
1:55 directly into West Europe's core. And
1:58 today in this episode of the blueprints,
2:00 we are going to break down the mechanics
2:02 of sovereign default, dissect the hard
2:04 data, and answer the uncomfortable
2:07 question, which European country is
2:09 genuinely walking straight towards a
2:11 financial war.
2:20 Before we rank the danger list, we need
2:23 to clear up what bankruptcy actually
2:25 means for a country. Because it is
2:27 nothing like a company going bust. When
2:29 a corporation goes bankrupt, court
2:32 marshals show up, block the front doors,
2:34 sell off the desks and laptops, and
2:36 liquidate everything to pay off
2:38 creditors. A country cannot be
2:40 liquidated. Instead, a sovereign nation
2:42 goes bankrupt in one of two different
2:45 ways. The first way is a hard default.
2:48 That's when the government basically
2:49 says, "We don't have the money to pay
2:51 back your bonds, so we're just not
2:53 paying." The second, much more common
2:56 way is a sovereign debt crisis or
2:58 rollover failure. Every government on
3:01 Earth borrows money by issuing bonds
3:04 with expiration date, say 5 years or 10
3:06 years. When those bonds mature, [music]
3:09 governments don't pay them off with tax
3:11 revenue. They borrow new money to pay
3:13 off the old debt. They roll it over.
3:16 Now, if you are the United States or
3:18 Japan, you borrow money in your own
3:20 currency, which your own central bank
3:22 controls. Japan has a debt to GDP ratio
3:26 of over 200%. But they never technically
3:30 default because the Bank of Japan can
3:32 buy whatever debt the market [music]
3:33 won't touch. Europe is totally
3:36 different, however. Countries in the
3:38 Euro zone gave up their individual
3:40 central banks when they adopted the
3:42 euro. France, Italy, Belgium and Greece
3:46 do not control their own currency
3:48 printer. They rely on the central
3:50 European bank in Frankfurt, which has
3:52 strict rules against directly financing
3:55 governments. That means these countries
3:57 are at the complete mercy of private
4:00 global investors. If international
4:02 investors wake up one morning, look at a
4:05 country's budgets and decide that
4:07 country is running out of roads, they
4:09 stop buying its bonds. They demand
4:12 higher interest rates like 4%, [music]
4:14 5% or even 6% to lend money. Suddenly,
4:18 the country's interest bill explodes.
4:20 The government cannot afford the new
4:22 interest. Investors [music] refuse to
4:24 lend and the country enters what
4:26 economists call a buyer strike. That is
4:29 sovereign bankruptcy. And when you
4:31 understand that dynamic, the data shows
4:34 why the traditional suspects are far
4:36 safer than you think. Let's now address
4:39 the elephant in the room. Why isn't
4:41 Greece collapsing right now? Back in
4:44 2010, Greece was the poster child for
4:47 financial catastrophe. Riots in the
4:49 streets, banks shutting down, ATMs
4:52 limiting cash to 60 a day. The world
4:55 watched on in horror. But fast forward
4:58 to today, Greece still has the highest
5:00 debt to GDP ratio in Europe at 143.5%.
5:05 But Greece is nowhere near default. In
5:08 fact, rating agencies have spent recent
5:11 months upgrading Greek debt [music] back
5:13 into investment grade. How? Well, first,
5:16 the composition of Greek debt. [music]
5:18 When Greece was bailed out, private
5:20 hedge funds and banks were replaced by
5:23 European institutions and the IMF. Most
5:27 of Greece's debt isn't floating around
5:29 on Wall Street waiting to be repaid next
5:31 week. It is locked into ultra long-term
5:34 loans with fixed rock bottom interest
5:37 rates. The average maturity of Greek
5:39 debt [music] is around 20 years. That
5:42 means market volatility today barely
5:45 scratches their budget tomorrow. Second
5:47 is discipline. Greece was put through
5:50 brutal austerity that broke their
5:52 economy in the short term, but [music]
5:54 it forced them to balance their books.
5:56 Greece is now running a primary budget
5:59 surplus, meaning government revenues are
6:01 higher than government expenses, [music]
6:03 excluding interest payments. Because
6:05 their economy is growing, [music] and
6:07 they aren't piling on massive new
6:09 borrowing, their debt ratio dropped by
6:11 over 9 points yearover-year.
6:15 The exact same story applies to Portugal
6:17 [music] and Spain. Portugal cut its debt
6:20 to 91%, down 3.9 points. Spain is down
6:24 1.7 points. They learned the hard
6:26 lessons 15 years ago. Get your deficit
6:29 under control [music] or the bond market
6:31 will destroy you. Now compare that
6:34 discipline with what is happening in
6:36 Paris. [music] France is the second
6:38 largest economy in the European Union,
6:41 the pillar of European integration and a
6:43 global power. It is also sitting on a
6:46 [music] fiscal ticking time bomb. Let's
6:48 look at the raw numbers. France's
6:51 national debt has crossed 3.5 trillion.
6:54 In terms of percentage of economic
6:56 output, it sits at 117.6%
7:00 of GDP, up four full percentage points
7:03 yearover-year. To put that into
7:05 perspective, France added more debt in
7:08 relative terms over the last year than
7:10 Italy did. But why is France doing that?
7:13 Because for decades, French governments
7:15 have run massive structural deficits.
7:18 Even with high taxes, France spends far
7:21 more money than it brings in. France's
7:24 budget deficit has regularly hovered
7:26 above 5% of GDP, far beyond the European
7:30 Union's 3% limit. And here is the
7:34 critical vulnerability, interest rates.
7:37 When global interest rates were near
7:39 zero, France could borrow trillions for
7:41 free. Nobody cared about deficits. But
7:44 when central banks raised interest rates
7:46 to fight inflation, the cost of
7:48 servicing that 3.5 trillion euro
7:51 mountain skyrocket, France's annual
7:54 interest bill alone is surging towards
7:56 60 to 70 billion a year. That means
8:00 France is spending more money just
8:02 paying interest to bond holders than it
8:04 spends on its entire defense budget or
8:07 higher education. Now, how does a
8:09 country fix a deficit? Well, only two
8:12 ways. One is raised taxes. One is cut
8:14 spending. In France, taxes are already
8:17 among the highest in the developed
8:19 world. Raising [music] them further
8:21 risks choking off what little economic
8:24 growth remains. So what about cutting
8:26 spending? Well, that is where the
8:28 political bull hits. France's political
8:30 landscape is completely fractured.
8:33 Whenever any government attempts even
8:35 modest spending cuts like raising the
8:38 retirement age by two years, the country
8:41 erupts into nationwide general strikes,
8:43 transportation shutdowns and political
8:46 paralysis. There is no political
8:48 majority in parliament to pass austerity
8:51 and the public refuses to accept
8:53 spending cuts. Because of this deadlock,
8:56 bond markets have already started
8:57 [music] reacting. For years, investors
9:00 treated France government debt as nearly
9:02 as safe as German bonds. But recently,
9:05 the interest rate France has to pay on
9:07 its 10-year bonds climbed so high that
9:10 it matched countries like Spain and
9:11 Portugal. Think about how surreal that
9:14 is. Private investors now view lending
9:17 to the French Republic with virtually
9:19 the same caution as lending to Southern
9:21 European nations that were on the brink
9:23 of collapse just a decade ago. While
9:26 France is the major heavyweight in
9:28 trouble, there are two wild cards in
9:30 this chart that deserve serious
9:32 attention. That's Belgium and Finland.
9:35 Belgium sits at 109.1
9:38 deck to GDP, rising by 3.1 percentage
9:42 points. Belgium shares many of France's
9:45 worst habits. high public spending, slow
9:47 economic growth, and deeply fragmented
9:50 coalition politics that make passing
9:52 serious budget reforms [music] almost
9:54 impossible. Furthermore, Belgium has an
9:57 automatic wage indexation system. When
10:01 inflation spikes, public sector [music]
10:02 wages automatically rise, which directly
10:05 blows up government spending without any
10:08 increase in tax revenue [music]
10:09 or productivity to back it up. Then you
10:12 have Finland. Finland has always had a
10:15 reputation for frugal, responsible
10:17 Nordic finances. But look at the data.
10:20 Finland's debt ratio jumped by 5.5
10:23 percentage points in a single year, the
10:25 fastest [music] increase in the entire
10:27 European Union. Why? Well, Finland has
10:30 been hit by a perfect economic storm.
10:33 They share a massive land border with
10:35 Russia, meaning trade collapsed after
10:38 2022, forcing Helsinki to dramatically
10:41 ramp up defense expenditure. Combined
10:43 with an aging population, rising social
10:46 care expenses, and a stagnant [music]
10:48 domestic economy, Finland's debts has
10:51 climbed to nearly 90% of GDP. While
10:54 Finland's absolute debt is still lower
10:56 than France or Italy, the sheer speed at
10:59 which it [music] is deteriorating proves
11:01 that even the safest parts of the
11:03 continent are no longer immune to the
11:05 debt crunch. So let's answer the
11:08 question, which country will go bankrupt
11:10 first? [music] The answer is none of
11:12 them will default quietly. The European
11:14 Central Bank has a specialized tool
11:17 called the transmission protection
11:19 instruments, a financial tool designed
11:21 to buy bonds and suppress panic if
11:24 yields spiral out of control. However,
11:26 [music] that tool comes with strings
11:28 attached. The ECB will only save a
11:31 country if that country agrees [music]
11:33 to strict European fiscal supervision
11:36 and austerity. And that is why the real
11:38 front runner for the [music] next
11:40 sovereign crisis is France. Yes, Italy
11:43 has high debt, but its debt is
11:45 relatively stable, and millions of
11:47 everyday Italian citizens buy and hold
11:50 their own government's debt. Greece and
11:52 Portugal have already done the painful
11:55 reforms and are now running [music]
11:56 surpluses. France has none of those
11:59 safety nets. It has€3.5 [music]
12:02 trillion euros in nominal debt, massive
12:05 structural deficits, rapid
12:07 deterioration, and a political system
12:09 that literally cannot agree on a budget
12:12 without sparking social upheaval. But
12:14 the danger is on all of these countries.
12:16 [music] What do you think about the
12:18 economic situation in Europe? Please do
12:20 let us know in the comments down [music]
12:22 below. I'll see you on the next episode
12:24 of the Bluebirds.
Judged by claude-sonnet-5.5-eu on 2026-11-15 02:20 UTC. A flag means “worth a look”; a person decides.