Below we list the key European government bond indices tracked by ETFs, showing the relevant country weightings within them in percent, and using the latest available data from index provider and/or ETF issuer websites. We also add some comments.

Worthy of note in what are capitalisation-weighted indices is the predominance of three countries—Germany, France and Italy—which typically contribute around two-thirds of the overall index.

It's also worth mentioning that the riskiest countries in the CDS chart (Ireland, Greece and Austria) have relatively small weightings, particularly so for Ireland.

The weightings of the riskier countries jump in the 10-15 year index, with Italy exceeding 30%, Austria 8% and Greece 6%.

Some of the smaller index weightings have been omitted from the table. The iBoxx Euro Sovereign index weightings do not differ substantially from those of the EuroMTS indices. Of the riskier countries, Italy's weighting jumps in the 10-15 year and 15+ year indices, as before, and Germany and France remain the other two dominant issuers. The 10-15 year index has a much higher weighting of the riskier sovereigns (Ireland, Greece, Austria, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Portugal) than the other maturity indices.

The iBoxx euro liquid sovereigns capped index limits any one country's weighting to 20%, resulting in a boost to the weightings of countries outside the Germany-France-Italy bloc. In particular, from among the riskier countries, Belgium (in the 2.5-5.5 and 10.5+ indices); Spain (in all the indices over 2.5 years); and Greece (in the 2.5-5.5 year index) hit double-figure percentages.

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