Since the start of the crisis in the eurozone in 2010, European decision-makers have tried for some years to tackle ensuing problems. The majority of experts and politicians themselves admit that the eurozone was not sufficiently prepared for the crisis, nor has it managed to introduce essential reforms which could, even today, protect it effectively from another large-scale crisis. Clearly, some partial and incomplete reforms have been undertaken, such as the introduction of the banking union. Nevertheless, the political strategy for emerging from the crisis depended largely on shifting the burden of making adjustments onto countries mired in internal turmoil.

The monetary union and the IMF provided aid in the form of loans for the most vulnerable states. The terms these loans involved were meant to tighten budgetary discipline within member states and force structural changes. They were intended to reduce public debt, make labour markets more flexible, improve administrative efficiency and the conditions for enterprise investments, as well as stabilising the financial sectors, especially levelling the balance sheets of banks. In spite of all these efforts, the ECB took upon itself a substantial part of the burden involved in halting the crisis. And it is mainly thanks to its policy of quantitative easing and the lowering of the exchange rate that we have seen a gradual improvement of the economic situation as of 2015^[5].