And during the phase of the crisis where contagion within the euro area was at its worst, almost all countries saw their credit default swap spreads rise. In other words, as panics can happen in financial markets, even abiding fully with the fiscal rules cannot provide a cast-iron guarantee of affordable market access.
So what can governments do in these circumstances to safeguard fiscal policy as a stabilisation tool? First, this is precisely the kind of situation I mentioned earlier where we can and should aim to better preempt economic shocks.