In the UK, government spending cuts for the current fiscal year have averaged 25 per cent across departments. The danger with such an approach is that the adverse impact on growth could set in motion negative debt dynamics which would make the overall debt situation even worse.
*  *  *  Introduction I am happy to have the opportunity to speak in front of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis on the Eurosystem’s various measures to address the crisis. The financial crisis created great uncertainty and presented a number of challenges from the policy-making perspective.