Therefore, political courage is more needed than ever. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Let me now comment in some more detail on three key areas: fiscal adjustment, competitiveness gains and financial sector issues.
Fiscal adjustment The Greek authorities and the Greek people deserve recognition for the significant fiscal adjustment they have achieved over the last two years: despite the deep recession, the general government deficit was reduced by around 6½% of GDP since 2009 (from 15¾% to 9¼%). This broadly corresponds to the deficit reduction that was initially envisaged under the programme, i.e.