Economic adjustment over the past six years Since the beginning of the sovereign debt crisis, six years ago, Greece has come a long way in adjusting its fiscal and external imbalances and has implemented a bold programme of structural reforms. First, there has been unprecedented fiscal consolidation.
The fiscal consolidation effort contributed to an improvement in the general government primary balance as a percentage of GDP by more than 11 percentage points over the period 2009–2015, despite the deepening recession. In fact, in the period 2013–2015 Greece managed to maintain small primary surpluses (as defined in the programme) in the general government budget for the first time since 2001.