ABSTRACT
The global economic crisis of 2008–09 is widely acknowledged as the most severe of the post-war period. It is the deepest, most synchronous economic crisis across countries and most global since the Great Depression of the 1930s. As a result of this unprecedented collapse in world economic activity, many have dubbed this as the Great Recession. The European Union (EU) recorded the sharpest contraction of real GDP (–4 per cent in 2009) in its history. Aside from interventions in the banking sector, the EU urged Member States to restore confidence and sustain demand to reduce the impact of the downturn. The overall fiscal stimulus was substantial, amounting to 5 per cent of GDP (EC 2009a), produced by an unprecedented array of anti-crisis measures implemented at the national level. In the EU the recession was followed by a weak recovery that came to a standstill in 2011, with several Member States entering recession again in the early months of 2012.
