Within Europe, though, the more immediate concerns involve Ireland. Its debt woes have stoked fear that it might even need to follow Greece and request a bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Such a move could do lasting damage to Ireland’s credit standing.

For the moment, at least, that outcome seems improbable. Unlike Greece earlier this year, Ireland has enough cash on hand to allow it to finance government operations through June 2011. And it has, at least temporarily, withdrawn from the bond market instead of paying the new, higher interest rates, which Irish officials say do not adequately reflect the country’s true economic condition.

To a degree, Irish officials are correct. Market experts concur that the ever widening gap between the interest rates Germany pays on its debt and those of Ireland and other vulnerable euro zone economies is partly a reflection of technical factors, like the tiny number of bonds actually being traded. Low trading volumes mean that every time even a single spooked investor decides to sell an Irish or Greek bond, it can be a market-moving event, causing the price to plummet and the yield to rise.

Still, there is no denying that the recent run-up in interest rates highlights a real concern throughout Europe: that the first round of spending cuts and economic changes put forward by countries that also include France and Britain may not be enough to bring deficits down to the target levels of 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2014.

In this respect, Ireland, where the deficit is currently 32 percent of its G.D.P., is exhibit A.

A year ago, as cascading mortgage defaults brought down the biggest Irish banks, Ireland became the first major developed nation to impose an austerity program. The country was hailed worldwide as an exemplar of probity and national consensus.

But as the full extent of the banking and real estate bust became evident, it was clear that the government of Prime Minister Cowen, which has been in power since the onset of the crisis more than two years ago, had underestimated the cost of fiscal recovery. Now the possibility that he will be forced from office or compelled to call a new election grows by the day.

Last week, the Irish government conceded that it had previously miscalculated the scale of its debt challenge. It announced that the task would require an additional 15 billion euros in savings over four years, bringing the total sum of tax increases and spending cuts to about 30 percent of Ireland’s total economic output.