Crisis Hangover Traps Best-Rated Euro Nation as Jobs Vanish

As the euro area surfaces from its worst crisis on record, the bloc’s best-rated member and a key proponent of austerity is losing jobs and gaining debt.

The challenges facing Finland -- a stable AAA rated economy -- are “historic,” Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen said on Jan. 10 in Helsinki. “I would like to promise that the euro crisis will end this year, that Finnish structural change in industry will stop and government-debt growth will halt. Unfortunately, I can’t.”