Greece faced a sovereign debt crisis in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Widely known in the country as The Crisis (Greek: Η Κρίση, romanized: I Krísi), it led to impoverishment and loss of income and property, and forced the government to carry out a series of sudden reforms and austerity measures. In all, the Greek economy suffered the longest recession of any advanced mixed economy to date and became the first developed country whose stock market was downgraded to that of an emerging market in 2013 (only starting to be reclassified back as a developed market by FTSE Russell in October 2025). As a result, the Greek political system was upended, social exclusion increased, and hundreds of thousands of well-educated Greeks left the country, though the majority of those emigrants had returned as of 2024.
The crisis started in late 2009, triggered by the turmoil of the world-wide Great Recession, structural weaknesses in the Greek economy, and lack of monetary policy flexibility as a member of the eurozone. The crisis included revelations that previous data on government debt levels and deficits had been underreported by the Greek government; the official forecast for the 2009 budget deficit was less than half the final value, and after revisions according to Eurostat methodology, the 2009 government debt was raised from $269.3bn to $299.7bn, about 11% higher than previously reported.
