Ireland



Three years after it was saved from bankruptcy in 2010 with a €67.5bn rescue loan, Ireland became the first stricken eurozone state to stand on its own two feet.

Dramatic austerity measures, including steep cuts to many public sector workers’ pay, had satisfied the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund that their loans would be safely paid back.

The finance minister at the time, Michael Noonan, was quick to dampen the celebrations with a warning against ever allowing another property bubble to grow and burst. The crash, he said, caused the country’s worst period since the potato famine of the 19th century.

Noonan was probably upset to see a recent Knight Frank global property report that ranked Ireland in the top five hotspots over the past year, and figures showing prices in the swankier areas of Dublin are getting close to their 2007 peak.

A dearth of housebuilding over the past 10 years, despite rising household incomes and a sharp increase in employment (from 1.8 million in 2012 to well over 2.1 million last year), has also sent rents soaring, leaving many young workers to miss out on the recovery.

Meanwhile homelessness remains a major problem across the country. And in some areas negative equity and mortgage arrears mean the scars of recession remain. More than 8% of the population live in consistent poverty and 7% of mortgages are still more than three months in arrears.

It makes for a divided nation, uneasy about a recovery. A recent Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll found that 52% of voters are “dissatisfied with the way the government is running the country” compared with only 37% that are satisfied.

Portugal



Lisbon followed the post-crash route charted by the UK and Ireland of punishing austerity before voters in 2015 ditched the rightwing government led by Pedro Passos Coelho in favour of the socialist leader António Costa. Since then, austerity has eased, consumer and business confidence has recovered and GDP growth has stayed above 2%.

Portuguese prime minister Antonio Costa with Angela Merkel during a visit to Lisbon by the German chancellor. Photograph: Francisco Leong/AFP/Getty Images

Costa recently told the European parliament that, thanks to his government’s alternative economic approach, Portuguese people, in contrast to many European countries, had regained their “trust in the democratic institutions and in their belief in the EU”.

He reeled off a list of economic achievements, including reduced inequality, increasing employment and a budget deficit well within EU rules. Last year the European commission released Portugal from its bailout conditions.

Last October Costa swept the board in local elections that gave the socialists a record haul of 158 town halls out of the country’s 308 cities and towns.

Like Ireland, Greece and Spain, the country suffered an exodus of young people in the wake of the crash, many of whom are unlikely to return. With a public-debt-to-GDP ratio of 146% last year, there is still a mountain to climb to reduce the credit bill.

Greece



The collapse of the rightwing New Democracy government amid riots and strikes in 2015 ushered in the radical leftist government of Alexis Tsipras, who agreed a bailout with the EU of €86bn. It was the third time Greece had almost gone bust since 2010, when the Greek debt crisis started and the country received €110bn in bailout money before Brussels agreed a further €130bn in 2012.

An anti-austerity rally in Athens, 14 June 2018. Photograph: AP

After almost 10 years of eye-watering austerity, in which taxes have risen, welfare subsidies have been cut, pensions reduced and thousands of public sector workers made redundant, the government is poised to agree the final tranche of loans from the EU before being set free in August. But there are few economists who believe a country with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 180% can generate the funds needed to invest in the economy and pay back the loans.

Tsipras is set to agree terms for the end of the third bailout that will mean further austerity measures and running a large public sector surplus until 2022. No other OECD country has managed to spend less than it receives in taxes for as long as the Greeks are expected to.

More hopefully, tourism is back at record levels and some young professionals are beginning to return after a decade abroad.

Spain



Madrid avoided a comprehensive bailout, but the collapse of its banking system meant that in the crisis months of 2012, when Greece and Ireland were on the brink, Mariano Rajoy’s rightwing government agreed to borrow €100bn from Brussels.

Catalan separatist banner hangs from the balcony of the Generalitat Palace in Barcelona. Photograph: Pau Barrena/AFP/Getty Images

Rajoy was under pressure after the giant banking group Bankia had asked for a €19bn state rescue, and international investors effectively locked Spain out of the financial markets.

Like Ireland, Spain has recovered strongly since then. GDP growth between 2015 and 2017 averaged 3.2% as employment climbed and household incomes recovered.

But some regions have bounced back more quickly than others, causing political strife. Several leaders from Catalonia, which boasts the headquarters of Mango and Zara, among other companies, remain either in jail or exile following protests that brought the region to the brink of breaking away. Rajoy was recently deposed following a vote of no confidence that ushered in the socialist leader Pedro Sánchez, who is expected to ease austerity.