And so in both cases, the monetary authority can help out by producing enough inflation to bring real wages down to a level where supply and demand are brought back into balance.
The price is still being paid with wages and costs being slashed in an attempt for these mainly southern countries to regain competitiveness within a monetary union.
Because Europe's governments have signed away national control of interest rates, fiscal policy is the only tool to hand if the single monetary policy leaves their economies growing more slowly than they might, or faster than they can sustain without pressure on wages and property prices.