A recent analysis by Fitch, a rating agency, suggests that it will be very hard for any highly indebted euro-zone government to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio by 20 percentage points over the next eight years, still less return it to its pre-crisis level. Governments need to run primary (ie, before interest payments) surpluses in order to pay off existing debt. The IMF reckons that Italy will reach and maintain a primary surplus of nearly 5% of GDP by 2018, but is less sanguine about other euro-zone debtors. Tax rises and spending cuts are hard to implement. A study of 54 emerging and advanced economies, by Ugo Panizza of the Graduate Institute, Geneva and Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley shows that large and sustained primary surpluses are extremely rare. People in the southern periphery are especially fed up with austerity, which has had a massive cost in terms of unemployment and living standards. More bad news, and the situation could look critical once again.