Germany’s Ifo Institute prepared a handy table of historical records for EU member states with respect to satisfying the deficit ‘break’ rule of 3% of GDP (note, I added some side calculations to the original table for averages and for % of years in violation, based on each country accession year):
Enjoy the fact that with exception of Luxembourg, Estonia and Sweden, and adjusting for recession-related causes also Denmark, no country in the EU has managed to fully satisfy the Maastricht criteria.
