During the euro area (EA) sovereign debt crisis, lenders in financial markets raised default risk premiums on sovereign bonds issued by countries that were then consid-ered too risky. Among some of these countries (especially Greece), fiscal policy had not been implemented according to good...

The Maastricht Treaty on Europe Union features an Excessive Deficit Procedure limiting the freedom to borrow of governments participating in the European monetary union. One justification is to prevent states from over- borrowing and demanding a bailout which could divert the European Central...