This House Believes That the European Stability Mechanism should require member states facing sovereign debt crises to adopt financial repression rather than austerity as a condition for financial assistance

The “European Stability Mechanism” (ESM) is an agency for eurozone states which provides financial assistance to members facing severe financial crises, typically in exchange for domestic economic policy reforms. For this debate, “financial repression” refers to a suite of government policies that redirect domestic capital towards public debt to reduce domestic borrowing costs for governments. Examples include: \- Requiring or incentivizing domestic banks and large institutional investors to hold minimum quantities of government bonds \- Capital controls limiting cross-border capital movement "Austerity" refers to substantially cutting state spending.