The push for austerity adds to concerns that the rescue from record government debt loads may be as negative for the economies of Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland, and therefore the fragile overall European economy, as actual defaults on the debts might have been.
The stated intention of this policy is to introduce more inflation as a means to potentially stimulate economic activity, but it also provides a means to pay back the large amassed debts with less valuable paper currency without having to deal with the short-term pain of actual default.