In Italy, Prime Minister Mario Monti is proposing a €20 billion (Dh98.34 billion) austerity package aimed at reining in Rome's strained finances and huge public debt burden that together have brought it to the brink of insolvency.
And in Ireland, Prime Minister Enda Kenny's government is presenting a budget to cut €2.2 billion in spending and raise a further €1.6 billion in new taxes as Dublin tries to cut its national debt to 8.6 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product next year.
But in Italy, Monti's austerity measures will be met with howls of protest and public opposition from an electorate unused to belt-tightening or hardship. That's a culture that has existed in part from the hollow assurances of the former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, that everything was fine because the airlines were full and it was hard to get a seat at a good restaurant.
In Ireland, voters have hardly murmured, accepting the austerity measures mandated from the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund as the price to pay for a €85 billion bailout 13 months ago. And the price to be paid for years of excess where its banks adopted questionable lending practices, lacked oversight, and supported a commercial and residential property bubble that burst in the wake of the financial crisis.
In Greece, in contrast, the government wavered and fell on the extent of the austerity measures needed to fund its bailout.
The lesson for European nations is this: high debt levels and huge public and social programmes cannot be sustained indefinitely. All governments need to trim spending, lower voter expectations, decrease social programmes and repair their nation's coffers.
The people of Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Greece and Italy should look to the example set by Ireland. It's bitter medicine to swallow. The alternative is far worse.
