Before the crisis, the single-minded emphasis on reducing national budget deficits to less than 3% of GDP led to extensive abuse. Either the target was openly flouted, as it was in leading economies like Germany and France, or the data were manipulated to obscure problems (a common practice throughout the eurozone, not just in Greece).
欧洲财政治理的问题是显而易见的。危机前一根筋地强调将预算赤字限制在GDP的3%之内导致了这一方针的滥用。德国和法国等领先经济体公开奚落这一目标，而有的国家则操纵数字掩盖问题（这是欧元区普遍的现象，不光是希腊）。而把经济增长当作财政万灵丹的思想导致了不切实际的乐观GDP预期。