EU Proposes More Forgiving Debt Plans A Decade After Crisis

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and had an epicenter 12.7 kilometers (8 miles) below sea level in the Gulf of Corinth, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) west-northwest of the capital, the Athens Institute of Geodynamics reported.

In hindsight, even EU officials have acknowledged there was an excess of austerity over a short period after the 2008 financial crisis, compounded by the sovereign debt crisis in a half-dozen EU nations a few years later.

After the 27-nation bloc had to spend its way out of a COVID-19 recession and as another downturn looms with Russia's war in Ukraine worsening inflation, the challenge is keeping investment high and debt levels manageable.



"With the wisdom that you can have after the crisis, we can say that we were not able to keep the level of investments as they should have been in the 10 years after the economic and financial crisis," Gentiloni said.

The European Commission, the EU´s executive arm, said Wednesday that the new plans would give member states with serious debt issues far greater leeway in combining a commitment to longer-term debt reduction while not excessively burdening a stretched population over too short a time.

During the debt crisis, struggling nations from Greece to Portugal were barred from more conventional methods like massive borrowing to spend their way out of bad times and instead had to tighten their belts.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner said that "it is clear that any reform of the European fiscal rules must correspond to the core principle of ensuring financial stability." German reaction was swift - and predictable.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, center, talks with European Commissioner for athens airport bus Energy Kadri Simson, right, and European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides as they arrive for the weekly College of Commissioners meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels, private taxi athens greece Wednesday, Nov.

Investors stopped lending Greece money in 2010 after athens airport to city taxi cost acknowledged misreporting key budget data.
To keep the country afloat, its European partners and the International Monetary Fund approved three rescue loan programs lasting from 2010 through 2018 worth a total 290 billion euros ($293 billion).

BRUSSELS (AP) - The European Union is considering more lenient economic recovery proposals that veer away from the grinding, and taxi athens greece several other countries during the debt crises a decade ago and helped push millions into poverty, homelessness and Thessaloniki escorted tours unemployment.

The reduction of debt "was not successful because the rules became more and more unrealistic. Gentiloni went close to saying as much Wednesday. And when you have unrealistic path, at the end you have no path."

In exchange, international creditors exacted what many Greeks still see as a pound of flesh: deep state spending and salary cuts, tax hikes, Thessaloniki airport bus privatizations and other sweeping reforms aimed at righting public finances.

European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders, left, talks with European Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni as they arrive for the weekly College of Commissioners meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Nov.