Europe faces plague of low growth and high debt

"A lot of countries are going to take a permanent hit to their trend rate of growth," said Philip Whyte, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, a research group in London. "This is not an ordinary recession, and so we’re not going to see countries bouncing back to precrisis rates of growth." ..."They’re going through some truly horrible times," said Mr Whyte of the CER. "I’m very worried about the whole southern European fringe, not just on an 18-month to two-year view but looking out a decade or longer."