Euro area crisis

The euro area crisis, often also referred to as the eurozone crisis, European debt crisis, or European sovereign debt crisis, was a multi-year debt crisis and financial crisis in the European Union (EU) from 2009 until, in Greece, 2018. The eurozone member states of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Cyprus were unable to repay or refinance their government debt or to bail out fragile banks under their national supervision and needed assistance from other eurozone countries, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The crisis included the Greek government-debt crisis, the 2008–2014 Spanish financial crisis, the 2010–2014 Portuguese financial crisis, the post-2008 Irish banking crisis and the post-2008 Irish economic downturn, as well as the 2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis. The crisis contributed to changes in leadership in Greece, Ireland, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia, Belgium, and the Netherlands as well as in the United Kingdom. It also led to austerity, increases in unemployment rates to as high as 27% in Greece and Spain, and increases in poverty levels and income inequality in the affected countries.

Causes of the euro area crisis included a weak economy of the European Union after the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession, the sudden stop of the flow of foreign capital into countries that had substantial current account deficits and were dependent on foreign lending. The crisis was worsened by the inability of states to resort to devaluation (reductions in the value of the national currency) due to having the euro as a shared currency. Debt accumulation in some eurozone members was in part due to differences in macroeconomics among eurozone member states prior to the adoption of the euro. It also involved a process of cross-border financial contagion. The European Central Bank (ECB) adopted an interest rate that incentivized investors in Northern eurozone members to lend to the South, whereas the South was incentivized to borrow because interest rates were very low. Over time, this led to the accumulation of deficits in the South, primarily by private economic actors. A lack of fiscal policy coordination among eurozone member states contributed to imbalanced capital flows in the eurozone, while a lack of financial regulatory centralization or harmonization among eurozone member states, coupled with a lack of credible commitments to provide bailouts to banks, incentivized risky financial transactions by banks. The detailed causes of the crisis varied from country to country. In several EU countries, private debts arising from real-estate bubbles were transferred to sovereign debt as a result of banking system bailouts and government responses to slowing economies post-bubble. European banks own a significant amount of sovereign debt, such that concerns regarding the solvency of banking systems or sovereigns are negatively reinforcing.

The onset of crisis was in late 2009 when the Greek government disclosed that its budget deficits were far higher than previously thought. Greece called for external help in early 2010, receiving an EU–IMF bailout package in May 2010. European nations implemented a series of financial support measures such as the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) in early 2010 and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in late 2010. The ECB also contributed to solve the crisis by lowering interest rates and providing cheap loans of more than one trillion euros in order to maintain money flows between European banks. On 6 September 2012, the ECB calmed financial markets by announcing free unlimited support for all eurozone countries involved in a sovereign state bailout/precautionary programme from EFSF/ESM, through some yield lowering Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT). Ireland and Portugal received EU-IMF bailouts In November 2010 and May 2011, respectively. In March 2012, Greece received its second bailout. Cyprus also received rescue packages in June 2012.

Return to economic growth and improved structural deficits enabled Ireland and Portugal to exit their bailout programmes in July 2014. Greece and Cyprus both managed to partly regain market access in 2014. Spain never officially received a bailout programme. Its rescue package from the ESM was earmarked for a bank recapitalisation fund and did not include financial support for the government itself.

The eurozone crisis resulted from the structural problem of the eurozone and a combination of complex factors. There is a consensus that the root of the eurozone crisis lay in a balance-of-payments crisis (a sudden stop of foreign capital into countries that were dependent on foreign lending), and that this crisis was worsened by the fact that states could not resort to devaluation (reductions in the value of the national currency to make exports more competitive in foreign markets). Other important factors include the globalisation of finance; easy credit conditions during the 2002–2008 period that encouraged high-risk lending and borrowing practices; the 2008 financial crisis; international trade imbalances; real estate bubbles that have since burst; the Great Recession of 2008–2012; fiscal policy choices related to government revenues and expenses; and approaches used by states to bail out troubled banking industries and private bondholders, assuming private debt burdens or socializing losses.

Macroeconomic divergence among eurozone member states led to imbalanced capital flows between the member states. Despite different macroeconomic conditions, the European Central Bank could only adopt one interest rate, choosing one that meant that real interest rates in Germany were high (relative to inflation) and low in Southern eurozone member states. This incentivized investors in Germany to lend to the South, whereas the South was incentivized to borrow (because interest rates were very low). Over time, this led to the accumulation of deficits in the South, primarily by private economic actors.

Comparative political economy explains the fundamental roots of the European crisis in varieties of national institutional structures of member countries (north vs. south), which conditioned their asymmetric development trends over time and made the union susceptible to external shocks. Imperfections in the Eurozone's governance construction to react effectively exacerbated macroeconomic divergence.

Eurozone member states could have alleviated the imbalances in capital flows and debt accumulation in the South by coordinating national fiscal policies. Germany could have adopted more expansionary fiscal policies (to boost domestic demand and reduce the outflow of capital) and Southern eurozone member states could have adopted more restrictive fiscal policies (to curtail domestic demand and reduce borrowing from the North). Per the requirements of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, governments pledged to limit their deficit spending and debt levels. However, some of the signatories, including Germany and France, failed to stay within the confines of the Maastricht criteria and turned to securitising future government revenues to reduce their debts and/or deficits, sidestepping best practice and ignoring international standards. This allowed the sovereigns to mask their deficit and debt levels through a combination of techniques, including inconsistent accounting, off-balance-sheet transactions, and the use of complex currency and credit derivatives structures. From late 2009 on, after Greece's newly elected, PASOK government stopped masking its true indebtedness and budget deficit, fears of sovereign defaults in certain European states developed in the public, and the government debt of several states was downgraded. The crisis subsequently spread to Ireland and Portugal, while raising concerns about Italy, Spain, and the European banking system, and more fundamental imbalances within the eurozone. The under-reporting was exposed through a revision of the forecast for the 2009 budget deficit from "6–8%" of GDP (no greater than 3% of GDP was a rule of the Maastricht Treaty) to 12.7%, almost immediately after PASOK won the October 2009 Greek national elections. Large upwards revision of budget deficit forecasts were not limited to Greece: for example, in the United States forecast for the 2009 budget deficit was raised from $407 billion projected in the 2009 fiscal year budget, to $1.4 trillion, while in the United Kingdom there was a final forecast more than 4 times higher than the original. In Greece, the low ("6–8%") forecast was reported until very late in the year (September 2009), clearly not corresponding to the actual situation.