Th e inclusion of Iceland with the euro area countries improves the euro area fi gures because its debt
ratio is projected to decline by 27 percentage points of GDP from 99 percent to 72 percent. However,
Iceland’s crisis reinforces the basic point that the European crises are more like solvency crises, requiring
debt write-downs. Iceland chose to force its banks to default on their external debts and thereby avoided
taking those debts onto the government’s balance sheet. Cyprus is doing the same, and fi ve write-downs of
Greek debt have already been arranged so far.57 More write-downs and stretch-outs that objectively reduce