In national accounts, general government expenditure is also classified by function according to the international Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG). The COFOG classification describes government expenditure according to the following ten major functions or purposes:
- General public services
- Defence
- Public order and safety
- Economic affairs
- Environmental protection
- Housing and community amenities
- Health
- Recreation, culture and religion
- Education
- Social protection
The expenditure according to these ten major functions is presented in an interactive table with charts. More detailed information on the type of expenditure is available for each function, i.e. compensation of employees (labour costs), intermediate consumption (expenses on goods and services) and gross fixed capital formation (investments). The data are transmitted to the ECB by Eurostat and are defined with reference to the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010).
Eurostat's Manual on sources and methods for the compilation of COFOG Statistics (link) provides detailed information on the methodological background for the compilation of COFOG data. The data are consistent in terms of methodology with the annual GFS data on government expenditure (dataset: GFS). However, differences between the two datasets may arise owing to data vintages.
Euro area, EU and all EU Member States, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
From 1995.
Annual.
For information about the naming convention (series key dimensions and metadata), refer to the E11 underlying DSD (NA_SEC) maintained by the ESTAT.
National currency or EUR, percentage of GDP, and percentage of total expenditure.
Current prices.
Not adjusted.
Total general government expenditure by functions (COFOG) (Eurostat ESA2010 TP, table 11) - E11
European Commission (Eurostat); OECD for Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Download the series catalogue containing a full list of series and associated metadata of the dataset E11 in CSV format (zipped)