While current instruments of EU economic policy coordination helped stave off a fullscale depression, the post-2007 global financial and economic crisis has revealed a number of weaknesses in the Stability and Growth Pact, the EU framework for fiscal surveillance and fiscal policy coordination....

Proceedings of the Workshop organised by the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs in Brussels on 17 January 2008. The post-2007 global financial and economic crisis has generated considerable political pressure in the EU, and beyond, to loosen the reigns of fiscal policy....

The paper examines consolidation episodes in the EU since 1970 with a view to shedding light on the factors that determine the success or failure of fiscal adjustment. Compared to the existing literature on successful fiscal consolidations we add a number of new dimensions. Two deserve...