(ANSA) - BELGRADE, OCTOBER 22 - Estonia is the European Union member state that recorded the lowest ratio of government debt to GDP at the end of 2017. According to new Eurostat data, Estonia had a debt/GDP ratio of 8.7%, ten times lower than the EU average of 81.6%. Very low ratios of government debt to GDP were recorded also in Luxembourg (23.0%), Bulgaria (25.6%), in the Czech Republic (34.7%) and Romania (35.1%). In general, countries in Central- and Eastern Europe registered a relative low level of government debt. Croatia recorded a ratio of 77.5% (down from 84% in 2014), Latvia 40% (down from 40.9% in 2014), Lithuania 39.4% (down from 40.5%), Hungary 73.3% (down from 76.6%), Poland 50.6% (up from 50.4% in 2014), Slovenia 74.1% (down from 80.4%) and Slovakia 50.9% (down from 53.5%). Eurostat noted that, in 2017, among the EU countries that registered a government surplus were also Czechia (+1.5%), Bulgaria (+1.1%), Croatia (+0.9%), Greece (+0.8%), Lithuania (+0.5%) and Slovenia (+0.1%).