If Vienna fails to get its finances under control, it could face penalties from Brussels. With its deficit at 3.9 percent of GDP and set to rise to 4.1 percent next year, it is in breach of the Maastricht criteria which stipulate an upper limit of 3 percent. In addition, Austria’s debt ratio could rise to over 80 percent, although according to the rules it should not exceed 60 percent. The national press is divided on how to avert a crisis.
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No one wants the Troika in the house
Die Presse urges Austria to bite the bullet:
“Without a credible path of reform, in the long term our creditworthiness will suffer, financing costs will rise and we risk triggering a debt spiral. In Greece it was the Troika, in Argentina it’s the ‘chainsaw’ that has taken control. … Austria needs neither of these if the next government really gets to work. Even relatively small cutbacks can generate billions without plunging the country into mass poverty. … There is no way to avoid the truth: you can’t balance a budget without taking something away from someone. But it is certainly better to initiate reforms voluntarily than to wait for the Troika.”
No need to panic
According to Kurier the procedure is nothing to worry about:
“The states ‘threatened’ in this way have nothing to fear from tough reform requirements or sanctions: or does anyone really believe that heavily indebted Italy will reduce its deficit by transferring tens of billions in fines to Brussels? Or that France will let the EU order it to raise its retirement age? The only EU state that has ever felt financially squeezed under Europe’s thumb was Greece, which was on the verge of collapse. For all other states, however, an EU deficit procedure is just a form of framework that must be adhered to in order not to jeopardise the entire EU financial market. … So we shouldn’t panic when our politicians start hyperventilating about a potential excessive deficit procedure.”