A lasting impact on the budget requires a decisive change in the laws and rules on expenditure. Otherwise, as experience has shown, even dramatic budget adjustments produce only short-lived results. Measures to stimulate renewed growth Heightened competition and a broadening of the scope for market mechanisms to operate are necessary for a revival in production and complementary to decisions regarding equity.
While the respective cross-country standard deviation of EURIBOR lending rates among euro area countries stood at more than 100 basis points for the one-month maturity, and at around 50 basis points for the 12-month rates in January 1998, since early 1999 both of these indicators have shown values not higher than, and normally below, one basis point.