According to BIS: “the largest adjustment has taken place in economies facing financial market pressures, Greece is expected to improve its underlying primary balance by almost 17 percentage points of potential GDP by the end of 2013, while Ireland and Portugal are expected to have improved theirs by 7.3 and 6.8 points respectively”. For Spain the figure is 8.3 and Italy 5.1.
These are not small figures, we must admit. Still, the work must continue. All countries need a healthy primary surplus to take care of their borrowing costs. Often the most critical question is how they succeed in curbing the expenditure related to pensions and health care. On banking I spoke about the banking union.