The Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, at the beginning of this year, clarifying the current economic picture of Greece after half a decade of one of the worst recessions Europe has ever seen.

 

　　The year 2012 repeatedly saw this one country struggle with the financial leaders of the European Union to agree on bailout packages ?C in return for sharp and decisive cuts in public spending.

 

　　Greece weren't the only ones struggling though. The likes of Spain and the Republic of Ireland, all had close shaves with bankruptcy. Avoiding it only by agreeing to more cuts to public spending, and further job losses throughout the continent.

 

　　In fact unemployment rates for the entire Eurozone hit record lows last November at 11.8 percent.

 

　　According to Eurostat estimates, November 2012 saw an additional 154,000 people added to the jobless category to hit the 26 million mark from November.

 

　　As Mike Bastin, an economic researcher at Nottingham University points out, the year 2012 was a chaotic one in Europe.

 

　　"Last year across Europe as one of tremendous confusion. I don't think there was a lot of integration across the EU institutions, so I don't think there was evidence of any combined attempt to improve the economic situation across the continent."

 

　　Amid the crisis, China was looked upon as an option to save the wobbling eurozone ship.

 

　　The World Bank's chief economist Justin Yifu Lin saying the country could continue growing for the next 2 decades.

 

　　"The newly elected top leadership has clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges the Chinese economy is facing. I'm sure China will follow the path of reform and opening up, and overcome difficulties in economic transformation. in the coming 5, 10, or 20 years, China is likely to maintain high speed economic growth."

 

　　Could China provide the capital for European recovery?

 

　　Financial commentators such as Cao Can, think the Chinese economy may be wary of continually pouring money in to an economy unless there are certainties of getting a return.

 

　　"I Think China has already invested a lot in the European economy. The height of the financial crisis, when rating agencies downgraded the European debt and Greek debt to junk, China made ths strategic decision to buy a lot of European debt. China doesn't want the Euro to completely collapse, they want actually the Euro to compete with the US Dollar as reserve currency of the world. So China has already done its part in stabilising the financial system. Can we expect China to continue to throw good money at the bad, I think there's a limit to that."

 

　　He also says the austerity measures may not even be a bad thing in the long run.

 

　　That, the current unemployment rates due to spending cuts could lead to private capital growing in the future.

 

　　"I think there's an erroneous belief that government spending generates economic growth. That is actually false, because government doesn't actually have any wealth. Wealth comes from either taxes or debt so when government spends a lot of money by either taxing the private sector or borrowing money from the bank, that's the money and resources that can not be utilised by the private sector so I think the government is actually a burden on a larger economy if government spends too much money. So when government shrinks, the tax payers would get more money to spend and businesses might be able to get access to financing."

 

　　There's different schools of thought regarding the outcomes from this coming year. While Cao Can expects the austerity to continue for the time being, Mike Bastin is expecting 2013 to bring about an improvement in the Eurozone fortunes.

 

　　"2013 will be very different, I think the Eurozone member nations will improve the outlook and there will be a much more co-ordinated attempt to shore up the Euro and I'm much more positive about the year ahead."