Register of Public Sector Bodies 2023 - Provisional

Public corporations are government-controlled units, by means of either direct or indirect government ownership, but are classified outside the general government sector for national accounts and government accounts purposes. See Background Notes for more information.

The financial data in this chapter is based on the annual financial statements of the Public Corporations listed in the Register of Public Sector Bodies published in October 2023.

At end December 2023 there were 352 public corporations in the general government sector, including subsidiaries of large group head entities. There were 288 public corporations in central government, of which 233 were in the non-financial sector and 55 in the financial sector.  There were 64 public corporations in the local government sector, all of which were in the non-financial sector. 

Subsidiaries

Annual financial information was only available at the company group level (rather than at individual company/subsidiary level). Therefore, the financial data is based on 117 entities as the subsidiaries are incorporated into the group accounts. 

The largest number of subsidiaries for a company group head was 97. The next highest numbers of subsidiaries were 34 for two company groups.

Liabilities of public corporations

The liabilities of public corporations are reported once they exceed the threshold of 0.01% of GDP (€506,282 million in 2022, in line with the 2022 financial data). This threshold is set by the European Commission and all EU Members States are legally obliged to send this data to Eurostat.

The liabilities of public corporations are not part of gross general government (Maastricht) debt. Nevertheless, Eurostat requires that member states collect data on this sector as their liabilities are referred to as “contingent liabilities” and are deemed to be potential obligations of government. These liabilities will only materialise as actual government liabilities if specific conditions prevail and are therefore not included in the general government accounts. 

A number of additional important aspects should also be taken into account when analysing the liabilities of public corporations: (i) the data collection refers to liabilities only and does not include assets; (ii) the liabilities of public corporations are consolidated, therefore liabilities owed to other entities in the same company group are consolidated.

Further financial data is collected from relevant annual financial statements when total liabilities exceed the 0.01% GDP threshold.  At end December 2023, 25 entities breached this threshold, 24 in central government and 1 in local government. The total liabilities of the 25 public corporations were €166,420 million (33% of GDP). Of these, €1,409 million liabilities were owed to government, such as tax and social welfare. 

See Background Notes for more information.

A complete list of the Register is available on the Register of Public Sector Bodies 2023 - Provisional Table 1.1 (XLS 65KB) .

Figure 1.1 in the Public Sector chapter displays a breakdown of the Register by subsector.

A CSV file is also available on the Register of Public Sector Bodies 2023 - Provisional Table 1.1 csv file.

NACE economic activity

Figure 6.1 below outlines the NACE economic activity classification of these 352 public corporations. The largest number of public corporations is in the Electricity, gas economic activity sector (99 corporations). Financial and insurance activities (69 corporations) and Arts and entertainment (48 corporations) are the next largest economic activity sectors (see Nace Rev 2 classification for full sector descriptions).