“It looks like a botched and improvised job, and unprofessional -- groping in the dark without much consideration of what sort of signal it sends,” said Alessandro Leipold, chief economist at the Lisbon Council, and former acting director of the European Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in his Post Summit Analysis of the 14-15 March 2013 European Council. “That’s no way to really run a crisis.”

“Criticism that the EU has focused excessively on fiscal adjustment at the expense of growth has become a growing chorus,” noted Alessandro Leipold, chief economist at the Lisbon Council and former acting director of the European Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to the Euro Plus Monitor Spring 2013 Update, Greece is placed first among the 17 eurozone countries to implement fiscal reforms. At the same time, the findings of the publication reflect optimism for the eurozone as a whole and indicate that if it stays the course it is likely to emerge from recession late this year.

Talking in Brussels at The Europe 2020 Summit organised by the Lisbon Council, US Ambassador to the European Union, William E. Kennard, said the EU was good at visionary thinking but poor at executing its own ideas.

Greece remains the best-performing country in the eurozone as far as adjustment to structural reforms is concerned, according to the updated Euro Plus Monitor report issued on Thursday by the Lisbon Council and Berenberg Bank.

"There's full steam ahead in our work to secure the agreement of the Parliament," said Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny at an event in Brussels hosted by the Lisbon Council think tank.

Alessandro Leipold, chief economist of the Lisbon Council and former acting director of the European Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), comments on Cyprus' debt restructuring.

Alessandro Leipold, chief economist of the Lisbon Council and former acting director of the European Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), comments on the balance the IMF must take between adjustment policy and growth.

A new study by the Lisbon Council and Berenberg Bank suggests that it’s Europe, not the United States, that is on the more stable path toward long-term economic prosperity. 

In a timely editorial for The Wall Street Journal, Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister of Germany, points out that there is good news for the eurozone, the reforms are working. He writes that in a recent analysis by Berenberg Bank and the Lisbon Council, if the eurozone stays on the reform path, it could eventually emerge from the crisis as the most dynamic of the major Western economies.