First, the government finances of the problem countries must be stabilized. This takes tough measures, – expenditure control, tax increases, and sales of government assets – and it takes some time. Second, we need a tighter convergence of competitiveness of the member countries of the EMU.
The convergence of competitiveness is needed to get the problem countries to grow again, and to return their finances to a clearly sustainable trajectory. As regards stabilization of the problem countries, it has been necessary to support their stabilization programmes via temporary financing from the other partner countries, and from the IMF.