At Merkel’s behest and with the complicity of the ECB, which waited until July 2012 to quell a bond-market panic sparked by eurozone policymakers’ mistakes, the Commission also imposed eurozone-wide austerity, causing a cumulative loss of nearly 10% of GDP in 2011-13, according to the Commission’s own economic model. By plunging Italy into a deep recession (from which it has yet to recover), austerity sank interim Prime Minister Mario Monti’s broad-based coalition and boosted Beppe Grillo’s anti-establishment, anti-euro Five Star Movement, which finished second in the European Parliament election.
面对默克尔的要求和欧洲央行的顺从（欧洲央行直到2012年7月才出手平抑由欧元区决策者错误导致的债券市场恐慌），欧盟委员会也在全欧元区推出了紧缩政策，导致2011—2013年接近GDP的10%的总损失（据欧盟委员会自己的经济模型数据）。紧缩让意大利陷入深度衰退（至今仍未恢复），让总理蒙蒂的广泛联合过渡政府半途而废，让格里洛（Beppe Grillo）的反现状、反欧盟政党——五星运动（Five Star Movement）得以兴起，并在欧洲议会选举中名列第二。