From the Crisis to a European Economic Strategy

How would you describe the way the European Union has handled the crisis since the Spring European Council?

The European Union and Greece have every reason to consider the handling of the crisis a great success, an achievement whose relevance goes well beyond what most observers believed possible until then.

The decisions reached in May consist of two groups of actions: the measures to redress the Greek economy and the measures put together by the EU.

The first group of actions, as part of Greece’s pledge to the troika (the EU, the ECB and the IMF) in return for financial aid, is an extremely vigorous recovery plan, which looks both strong and very brave by comparison with those that other countries have adopted in similar circumstances. The plan, designed to slash the country’s public deficit by 30 billion euros to push it back at 3% of GDP by 2014, was adopted by an absolute majority in the Greek Parliament on 6 May.