It took no less than eight years, three economic adjustment programmes, major debt restructuring and three rounds of bank recapitalisation to resolve the Greek crisis. The length and depth of the Greek crisis can be explained by seven factors: 1 / 14  BIS central bankers' speeches  · First, the size and speed of fiscal consolidation were unprecedented.
This primarily had to do with the fact that the initial fiscal and external imbalances were much higher in Greece than in other Member States under financial stress. In addition, emphasis has, on average, been placed, over the three adjustment programmes, more on tax hikes rather than expenditure cuts, growthenhancing reforms and privatisations.