Social protection remained the core expenditure sector representing
31.6 per cent of total general government expenditure in 2016, followed by general public services, health and education.

The National Statistics Office said total general government expenditure decreased by €39.6 million over 2015, amounting to €3,779.5 million.

This fall was primarily due to the closure of the EU Funds programming period 2007-2013 in 2015. Social protection remained the largest share of expenditure for general government with an increase of €46.9 million, amounting to €1,194.6 million, particularly due to expenditure on pensions, children’s allowance and child care.

The same held for health expenditure (€555.8 million), mainly on account of higher spending on hospital services; and for education expenditure, which went up by €23.8 million.

Environment protection witnessed the largest drop among all expenditure functions, with a decline of €86.4 million over 2015, followed by economic affairs which registered a decline in expenditure of €18.4 million and defence (€17.1 million).

For 2016, the total expenditure for each function as a percentage of total general government expenditure was generally in line with previous years. The highest share of total government expenditure was devoted to social protection (31%), increasing by 1.5 percentage points in 2016.

This was followed by general public services (16.7%), health (14.7%) and education (14.1%).

Expenditure on housing and community amenities had the lowest contribution to total expenditure, followed by defence representing 0.7% and 1.6% respectively.

Environment protection expenditure as a percentage of total general government expenditure declined by 2.2 percentage points over 2015.
In 2016, general government expenditure as a percentage of GDP decreased to 38.1% from 41.2% in 2015.

Similarly to the previous four years, when considering general government data by function, a considerable share of government expenses was allocated to wages and salaries (31.3%), social benefits in cash or in kind (28.7%) and intermediate consumption (16.8%).

For 2016, the largest contribution of government expenditure went towards old age (€735.4 million), mainly through pension payments, which represented 61.6% of total spending on social protection and 19.5% of total general government expenditure.

This was followed by hospital services (€364.2 million), 65.5% of total expenditure on health A considerable share of government expenditure was also registered on executive and legislative organs, financial, fiscal and external affairs (€288.7 million), followed by €220.1 million on public debt transactions.