The current account of the balance of payments in the third quarter 2020 recorded a deficit of €100 million, down from a €300 million surplus registered in the same period a year earlier. At the same time, however, figures released by Eurostat show that the deficit was lower than the €300 million registered in Q2 2020.
As a whole, the current account balance in the EU reached a surplus of €75.6 billion between July and September 2020, equivalent to 2.6 percent of total GDP, a decrease from the €87.6 billion registered in the previous quarter (2.9% of GDP). In the third quarter 2019, the bloc recorded a surplus of €100.3 billion, making up 2.9 percent of total GDP.
Malta was one of eight EU members to turn a deficit in Q3, with France registering the largest deficit in value terms (-€11.4 billion). Germany, on the other hand, recorded the biggest surplus among the other nineteen economies (€62.9 billion), followed by Italy (€25.3 billion) and the Netherlands (€17.0 billion).
