Europe, in contrast, was populated by left-leaning Social Democrats and center-right Christian Democrats who had spent the previous decade building a currency union that viewed monetary stability plus strict debt and deficit controls as the only policies worth bothering about. Thus, when the crisis hit, the European left (with the exception of the British under New Labour) and center-right argued and behaved in ways that we would normally expect from American Republicans: they championed financial stability, inflation control, and budget cutting as the way to get out of the crisis.

Mark Blyth, Austerity, loc. 168