Fire Brigade to Athens

Abstract

The economic mood in Europe in early 2010 was very nervous, fragile and turbulent. Greece was in a free fall due to her past fiscal irresponsibility and statistical fraud that had begun to surface to the public awareness. Financial stability of the whole Eurozone was soon in danger, as the Greek bush fire threatened to turn into a European forest fire, with damaging ramifications to the nascent recovery—and there was no existing fire brigade, nor fire extinguishers. Even worse, we had just experienced the most severe global financial crisis since the 1930s, which had badly damaged growth and jobs and led to an increase in fiscal deficits and public debt. Almost all European economies were vulnerable.