Two years after its onset, the economic fall-out of the pandemic appears to be subsiding, and the extraordinary fiscal and monetary support measures that kept economies 1/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  afloat are being gradually unwound. But as the economic recovery is proceeding at an uneven pace across regions, this unwinding process is increasingly likely to be asynchronous.
Austerity measures came at the expense of growth, and as a consequence, public finances have not been able to recover as quickly as expected and fiscal deficit targets have not been met. The result has been that the debt crisis has lingered longer than anticipated, and ultimately spread from peripheral Europe to other countries within the Euro zone.