* Member States had fiscal discipline, keeping their public deficits and public debt low
For these purposes, the European Central Bank was given a sole mandate to hit a 2% inflation target – regardless of patterns of unemployment and economic activity across the Eurozone.
Since the 2008 crisis, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the European Commission, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, along with other statistics institutions within the European Trade Union Confederation, have all agreed on this fact:
In 2010, with increasing fear of excessive sovereign debt, lenders demanded higher interest rates from eurozone states with high debt and deficit levels making it harder for these countries to finance their budget deficits when faced with overall low economic growth.
If the policy remains the same ,the Eurozone economies will continue to stagnate in the near future, as austerity measures sustain high unemployment and falling living standards in the periphery countries, while fiscal restraint in Germany and other core countries promotes conditions of weak demand across the Eurozone.