Following years of budget restraint, particularly in Greece, government deficits across the 19-country eurozone has fallen to its lowest level since before the most acute phase of the global financial crisis, official figures showed Tuesday. The reference back to 2008 represents a milestone for the eurozone as that was the year that the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, which triggered the most acute phase of the global financial crisis. In the eurozone, the global crisis and ensuing deep recession exposed the underlying financial problems of several countries, notably Greece, which led the eurozone deficit figure to rise as high as 7 percent in the third quarter of 2010. Most countries in the eurozone enacted a series of belt-tightening measures to get their public finances back into shape — some more than others. Stripping out debt and interest payments, Greece posted a budget surplus of 3.9 percent in 2016.

Source: ABC News April 25, 2017 09:03 UTC