Europe adopted "austerity" measures after the 2008 crisis, cutting government fiscal stimulus spending. Those cuts hurt GDP growth, leaving Europe's economy permanently smaller, according to Oxford Economics and the IIF. Europe lost an economy the size of Spain because of it.

When did austerity start in Europe?

It's a campaign of budget cutting that Britain's Conservative-led government began in 2010 in the aftermath of the global financial panic of 2008, the most crippling economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Who imposed austerity on UK?

In 2010, George Osborne imposed reckless austerity on the UK in the worst economic decision for many decades. By strangling growth through spending cuts and tax rises, his actions led to the slowest peacetime recovery in 300 years.