Tightening the continent's belt by several notches

Finance ministers from the eurozone are meeting in Brussels to consider what sort of rescue fund will be needed to tackle the continuing debt crisis.

Here's a country-by-country look at the European nations in the spotlight:

GERMANY

Just six months ago, Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition Government unveiled what was billed as Germany's biggest and most wide-ranging austerity package since World War II.

The €80 billion ($139 billion) savings programme, which came hard on the heels of the Greek euro crisis, was designed to "set an example" of prudent housekeeping to the rest of Europe.

The measures have included the axing of 10,000 public sector jobs and extensive cuts in municipal government and welfare spending. These have resulted in a surge in court cases involving benefit claimants who maintain they are chronically underfunded.

When the austerity measures were announced they were accompanied by claims that the country risked being dragged into a Weimar-style recession. They also brought charges from the United States Administration that the Merkel Government was stifling world growth.

Yet economic data released last week has shown these fears to be largely unfounded. Germany is enjoying its strongest growth since it was reunified in 1990. Exports are booming, particularly in the car industry. Unemployment is dropping and interest rates are low.

Experts say last year's record 3.6 growth rate will slow slightly this year, but the country's economic climate will continue to stabilise.

Whether the boom will improve support for Merkel's conservative-liberal coalition remains open.

IRELAND

The intervention of the EU, with the IMF, in the heart of Ireland's finances has gone remarkably smoothly, leaving surprisingly little sense of resentment at the Government's loss of authority.

Some thought the arrival of the international money people would be regarded as an affront, but the public reaction has been closer to resignation and relief than hostility.

Last month's budget was a particularly tough one, driving home the message that years of austerity lie ahead. Those in work have already been hit by extra taxes and a drop in benefits. Property values continue to fall.

Few, if any, families and individuals have escaped financially; the worst-hit are the unemployed, whose benefits have been cut while jobs are scarce.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

Spain's socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero trotted out a barrage of austerity measures only after EU prodding and repeated spurts of bond market jitters that inflated the country's borrowing costs.

After denying the severity of the economic crisis for years, Rodriguez Zapatero finally gritted his teeth last May and introduced a range of belt-tightening measures. But by moving slowly and gently, Zapatero did manage to avert Greek-style episodes of social unrest.

Austerity measures have helped neighbouring Portugal fend off an EU bailout - so far.

The socialist-led Government of Jose Socrates pushed through an emergency austerity package late last year that cut pay for public workers by 5 per cent, raised taxes, froze pensions and reduced welfare benefits. The unpopular plan sparked the country's first general strike since 1988 and did nothing to boost Socrates' popularity. He lags in the polls and may be forced to call early elections.

ITALY

As you might imagine in a country with the scandal-ridden media mogul Silvio Berlusconi as its perpetual Prime Minister, Italy, the eurozone's third-biggest economy, is something of a special case.

It is frequently lumped in with the uncharitably named Pigs - Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. And it's easy to see why, with its huge overall debt, unenviable corruption levels and sluggish growth.

It was the Italian Finance Minister, Giulio Tremonti, who last week warned the economic crisis in Europe was not yet over. However, Tremonti has won general backing for implementing savings worth €24 billion.

The most obvious reaction to his austerity budget has been violent student protests. But these were motivated as much by frustration at the country's political stagnation as they were by fears of economic hardship.

Unlike Britain, Italy has a relatively low annual deficit, so its arrears are increasing more slowly. And with its market-leading, high-end clothes, furniture, cars and textiles it can rightly claim to be a major economy manufacturing things that people, particularly in big emerging markets, want to buy.

BELGIUM

Market vultures have been circling over Belgium in recent weeks as the political deadlock in the country has entered a record-breaking seventh month. Belgians have so far not felt the squeeze of tightened belts but only because they have not had a government.

The worry is that without a government, the country has no hope of getting to grips with its debt pile which, at 97.2 per cent of GDP, is the third highest in the EU. Aware of the panic, the country's long-suffering King Albert II took the exceptional step last week of telling the caretaker Government to draw up a tough budget for this year.

Caretaker Prime Minister Yves Leterme has promised to start phasing in austerity measures if there is no new government in place by the middle of February. His job will be to cut costs across the board to reduce Belgium's deficit as well as its debt. But investors are also asking for major structural reforms to the state, a task no caretaker cabinet can handle.

Belgium's government crisis has now become the longest in modern European history, with Dutch speakers and Francophones at loggerheads over how to move towards more autonomy.

FRANCE

The French word for austerity - la rigeur - is a word President Nicolas Sarkozy refuses to use. Despite the President's reputation as a bold state reformer, his Government has so far avoided the kind of radical cuts in public spending seen in Britain and other EU countries.

With a total state debt of €1.6 trillion and a forecast budget deficit for last year of 7.7 per cent of GDP (compared to the official Euroland ceiling of 3 per cent), some economists warn France could become a target for market bullying.

The increase in the official retirement age last year was designed to convince markets that Sarkozy was a reformer without having to take an axe to state spending. Officially, there will be €57 billion in "cuts" this year to reduce the annual deficit in public spending to 6 per cent of GDP or €91.6 billion.

In reality, most French politicians admit this year's cuts are largely an optical illusion. Four-fifths of the cuts are the closure of spending programmes introduced to boost the economy after the 2008 recession.

The real test will come this northern autumn when - six months before the election - a budget for 2012 is due to reduce the public deficit to 4.6 per cent of GDP, roughly by another €60 billion.

- INDEPENDENT