ABSTRACT
This book investigates how European governments responded to the global crisis with a focus on the fiscal crisis and fiscal consolidation. In order to further clarify the distinctive nature and character of the fiscal crisis, first sheds some additional light on the banking and economic crisis. In return for the loan programme, the Troika enforced hard conditions about fiscal consolidation and reform upon the national government, nothing much the national government had control of. The very nature of the Eurozone crisis was that a national government was no longer capable to finance its national state debt. After the swift, drastic and centralised decision-making - the urgent crisis management - during the banking crisis, the decision-making during the economic crisis in countries with multi-party coalition cabinets regained its normal character of consultations, deliberations, compromises and consensus between the many parties concerned. The degree of political effort of a government to reach cutback decisions depends on the political context.
