Supporting Material And Analysis On The European Debt Crisis

A sovereign debt crisis is basically a government debt, also known as a national debt; it is money or credit owed by any level of government. Government deficits refer to the difference between government receipts and spending in single year. Debt of a sovereign government is called sovereign debt, which is an indirect debt of the taxpayers. This debt can be categorized as internal debt, owed to lenders within the country and external debt owed to foreign lenders. Governments usually barrow by issuing securities, government bonds and bills, rarely do they barrow directly from supranational institutions. Moreover, Government debt considers all government liabilities, including future pension payments for goods and services that the government

The European sovereign debt crisis started in 2008, with the collapse of Iceland's banking system, and spread primarily to Greece, Ireland and Portugal during 2009. The debt crisis led to a crisis of confidence for European

Along with the most significant outcomes of the current crisis has been a sharp increase in the concern concerning national debt. Certainly, what nourishes debt accumulation is deficit expenditure. The 1996 era, and throughout 2001, show up as "golden years" from the time where distinct development was done in reducing accumulated debt2. Stuck between 2001 and 2007 that development was obliterated. Consequently, at the period of the crisis years 2007-2010, declining federal returns and attempts to fix the economy and financial system radically enlarged the debt to GDP ratio.

before had the Eurozone been presented with such a large financial crisis that could undermine

repayments following the collapse of the Monti administration and differences with the IMF and other

Economists describe the global crisis of 2008 as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. National banks assisted in bailouts to prevent large financial institutions from collapsing, and that was only prevented by the help of national banks, who assisted in bailouts. Although national banks stepped in, stock markets dropped all over the world. The crisis is the cause for the failure of many businesses and a loss of trillions of U.S. dollars in consumer wealth, along with decreased economic activity and the nation-wide debt crisis over in Europe. There were many countries affected by the global financial crisis, one in particular being Greece. Many people think the problems in Greece started with the financial crisis, but the country’s debt problems started long before the crisis, tracing back to the 1970s. The Greek economy was not prepared to deal with the economic downturn, because of its large gap between revenue and expenditures.

The European Debt Crisis often referred to as the Eurozone Crisis, struck the European Union at the end of 2009.

The Eurozone is facing a serious sovereign debt crisis. Several Eurozone member countries have high, potentially unsustainable levels of public debt. Three—Greece, Ireland, and Portugal—have borrowed money from other European countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to avoid default. With the largest public debt and one of the largest budget deficits in the Eurozone, Greece is at the centre of the crisis. The crisis is a continuing interest to Congress due to the strong economic and political ties between the United States and Europe.

The Eurozone crisis is defined as a multi-year debt struggle that began as early as 2009 and originated in several of the Eurozone states. These countries were not able to pay back the debt they continuously built up even with help from institutions such as the European Financial Stability Facility, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. The debt the European Union members acquired were not considered a crisis until after the Great Recession in 2009. This is because some countries released false reports, which soon became discovered, regarding their economic stance. States were able to deceive other nations by inconsistent accounting, off-balance sheet transactions, and the use of complex currency and credit derivatives structures. Greece is considered the main culprit for causing the majority of the debt within the European Union. The Economic and Financial Committee are responsible for receiving and organizing these reports. Fabricated reports were easy for nations to submit due to the established rules set and the organization of the Maastricht Treaty created on February 7, 1992 right before the European Union was established.

The economic crisis of 2008 in New York had ripple effects around the world, causing deep structural problems within the European Union to crumble the economies of several countries. These countries, known as the PIGS, are made up of Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, and collectively hold most of the sovereign debt problems of the European Union. After fast growth early in the decade, these countries were spending too much money and not securing their own banking sectors with enough capital. Soon, the debt the PIGS owed caused massive problems throughout the EU, and Germany and France had to come to the rescue of these poorly managed countries. (Greek Crisis Timeline, 1) Now, in 2012, the issue has yet to be fully resolved. Greece is still sinking, and a massive bailout for Greece's banks is required. The debate is whether Germany should continue bailing out Greece and collecting interest on its loans, or whether Greece should try to separate itself from the broader European Union, in an attempt to manage its own finances and declare bankruptcy in order to save itself from crippling interest payments. Each path offers an escape from the present situation that Greece finds itself in, but only the path of bailout results in a harmonious European Union. If Greece fragments off from the EU, then the entire union is weakened as a result. I believe that Greece should accept the terms of the bailout that Germany has provided, and should undergo several years

In order to fight the crisis some governments within the European Union had focused on raising taxes and lowering expenditure. This raise of taxes and lowering of the governments expenditure contributed to social unrest as it is only natural the living population would much rather not pay higher taxes (Eichler, 2011). Sovereign debt had risen substantially in only a few Eurozone countries, most dramatically in countries like Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Although only a small amount of countries had a debt crisis or where on a path of having a debt crisis, it had become a perceived problem for the rest of the European union countries as the threat of further contagion was on the brink and a possible break-up of the Eurozone was in peoples thoughts. The global credit crunch in 2007/ 08 affected and exposed countries to the sovereign debt crisis. The credit crunch alludes to a sudden deficiency of trusts for giving, prompting an ensuing decrease in advances accessible. This credit crunch was constrained by a sharp climb in defaults on subprime contracts. These home loans were predominantly in America however the ensuing deficiency of stores spread all through whatever remains of the world particularly in Europe. This credit crunch led to many changes within the Eurozone, the following are some of the changes that the credit crunch caused; bank losses such as commercial European banks lost money on their exposure to bad debts in US, recession that resulted

The Eurozone faced competition among actors regarding who can explain the reasons behind the emergence of the crises and the best way to resolve the challenges facing them (Apak and Atay 2012: 561). Germany is always on the center stage in the Eurozone crisis due to its economy strength and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ability to negotiate the response to the crisis (Apak and Atay 2012: 562). According to Apak and Atay (2012), Merkel worked to promote the budgetary rigor and austerity, hence portrays the overwhelming national debt as the cause of the crisis. Merkel also disputes the structural weaknesses or imbalances in the Euro area as a cause of the crisis as asserted by Feldstein (2010). Her aim is to dominate the narrative of the

The European sovereign debt crisis, which made it difficult or impossible for some countries in the euro area to repay or re-finance their government debt without the assistance of third parties (Haidar, Jamal Ibrahim, 2012), had already badly hurt the economies in “PIIGS”, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. This financial contagion continues to spread throughout the euro area, and becomes a dangerous threat not only to European economy, but also to global economy.

In 2009, The Greek debt crisis began. This crisis is still ongoing today, but there have been many changes that occurred in Greece. This is also known as the Greek Depression. It is part of the ongoing Eurozone crisis, which was generated by the global economic recession which started in October of 2008. It is said to be caused by a combination of a weak Greek economy and an overly high structural deficit and debt to the countries ' government debt and the gross domestic product. Later in 2009, the question/ fear of sovereign debt crisis, which is the failure or refusal of the government to pay back debt in full, developed concerning Greece’s ability to even meet its obligations of paying its debt. This all led to a full blown crisis and risk insurance on credit default swaps, which are pretty much giving out loans to help pay off some of their debts.

There are many causes for the debt crisis to start. Before world war II Europe had very strict trade barriers between countries examples being currency exchange fees and trade tariffs. Then World War II happened and was so detrimental to Europe they couldn’t continue to have such strict trade barriers. The barriers were then slowly removed with the first barrier removal being steel and coal. This worked well enough that it caused twenty-seven countries to sign the Maastricht Treaty thus forming the European Union (UN). This made trading throughout all Europe easier which caused more trade to occur within Europe.