Glossary
Understand the ECB vocabulary
- Asset
- Austerity
- Balance sheet
- Bank reserves
- Bond
- Bond market
- Carbon footprint
- Central bank
- Central bank governor
- Central bank independence
- Civil society organisation
- Climate and environmental crisis
- Climate neutrality
- Collateral framework
- Corporate Sector Purchase Programme (CSPP)
- Coupon
- Credit Rating Agency (CRA)
- Debt
- Debt sustainability
- Deflation
- Deposit guarantee scheme
- Digital euros
- Eurogroup
- European Central Bank
- European Central Bank's Executive Board
- European Central Bank's Governing Council
- European Central Bank's strategy review
- European Commission
- European Council
- European Court of Justice
- European Green Deal
- European Parliament
- European Stability Mechanism
- European Union Treaties
- Eurosystem
- Eurozone/euro area
- EU taxonomy (for sustainable activities)
- Financial assets
- Financial speculation
- Fiscal rules
- Globalisation
- Green targeted longer-term refinancing operations (green TLTROs)
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- Growth
- Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP)
- Helicopter money
- Household
- Inflation
- Inflation target
- Interest rate
- Investment bank
- Investor
- Key interest rate/policy rate
- Liquidity
- Loan
- Loan guarantees
- Mandate
- Market neutrality
- Member of the European Parliament (MEP)
- Monetary dialogue
- Monetary policy
- Monetary financing
- Negative interest rate
- Pandemic Emergency Purchasing Programme (PEPP)
- Price stability
- Paris Agreement
- Primary mandate
- Private sector
- Quantitative easing
- Real economy
- Risk
- Secondary mandate
- Sovereign debt
- Sustainable finance
- Targeted longer-term refinancing Operations (TLTROs)
- Technocrat
- Treasury
- Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)
- Universal Basic Income
- US Federal Reserve
Sovereign debt
Also referred to as government debt, public debt, national debt, sovereign debt is the total amount of short-term and long-term debt that the government owes to foreign and domestic creditors. It is usually expressed as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
