SOME would say that tragedy was inevitable from the moment, nine years ago last month, when Greece was admitted to the euro zone. Others would claim that woe was sure to befall such a disparate currency union sooner or later: if not Greece, then some other weak member of the club would have been the cause. Avoidable or not, trouble has arrived. At best, Greece has to undergo a dramatic budgetary tightening. Its fellow Europeans, or the IMF, may yet have to organise a humiliating bail-out. Some even talk—probably mistakenly—of the beginning of the end of the euro area.

Last year Greece’s budget deficit reached 12.7% of GDP. Worries over whether the Greeks would act to cut it have caused paroxysms in the bond markets: late last month the yield on ten-year Greek government bonds vaulted to 7.1%, the highest since the country joined the euro area and about four percentage points more than that on German bunds, the euro zone’s safest investment. The panic abated on February 3rd, when the European Commission endorsed the Greek government’s plan to cut the deficit to 3% of GDP by 2012. The day before, Greece’s prime minister, George Papandreou, had used a television address to announce higher taxes on fuel and an extension of a public-sector wage freeze to include low-paid civil servants.

However, Greece and Europe are not out of trouble yet. The commission says it will watch Greece closely to ensure that it keeps its promises: it expects a report in mid-March on Greece’s chances of hitting this year’s deficit target of 8.7% of GDP. Joaquín Almunia, the outgoing economics commissioner, said he hoped a positive assessment by the commission in mid-May would help restore confidence in Greece, which has one of the world’s largest debt burdens relative to its GDP (see chart 1).

Read More: – the Economist