Leaders Pushed To Embrace Growth Stimulus Given the catastrophic mantra rising in media reports and from certain pundits, one contrarian point needs to be clear right here: democracy can't and won't kill the debt-stricken euro. As Europeans at the ballot box are demonstrating, economic policies and priorities - even amid the continent's currency crisis - simply aren't the zero-sum considerations governed by quasi-scientific rules that some commentators suggest. A range of credible choices always exists. European voters are now selecting from those, in some cases by embracing change effecting efforts to save the euro. Far from being terrified, markets seem to understand and even share some concerns driving such moves - particularly those attentive to growth. Government-swapping European elections are far less a threat to the single currency than domination of the same conventional thinking, ideological myopia, and facile reflexes that led to Europe's financial emergency in the first place. Should the euro eventually perish, it could be seen as the result of years of excessive spending - most recently by many of the same leaders now lurching to the opposite extreme with growth-culling, austerity-focused measures that now arguably complicate the debt crisis. Contrary to commentators claiming otherwise, changes resulting from crisis-framed elections in Europe also don't correspond to stereotypes of welfare state-addicted societies smiting leaders brave enough to succumb to the one and only reality the euro zone faces. Social and political variables involved have been too varied for that. Elections since 2011 have ousted leftist governments (Spain and Greece) and toppled ruling conservatives alike (Ireland, Denmark, and now, as seems likely, France). Italy replaced one discredited right-wing premier with a more stable, sober conservative alternative. Even countries that aren't facing elections have seen pressure for revised thinking about managing the euro crisis mount. That tension was largely responsible for the fall of the Dutch cabinet Monday. It's also forcing German Chancellor Angela Merkel to join E.U. peers questioning her all-austerity prescription for Europe's currency crisis. LIST: Merkel in the TIME 100 So if there's no one-size-fits-all political force at work, what's common to calls across Europe for change? A desire for better balance and viability in responding to the situation, for starters. There's also a demand for more common sense in finding cures that aren't more debilitating than the illness treated. European publics are ready to make sacrifices to save the euro, but they aren't convinced current leaders are making all the moves necessary to do that either. What's more, markets increasingly seem to share that view. European voters and politicians calling for growth stimulus to compliment existing austerity measures generally echo something many economists and market actors have been noting for months. To wit: that too much of anything is bad - including 100% spending cuts to battle debt. Without efforts to ensure minimal economic expansion that keeps revenues flowing into state coffers - so the warning goes - governments can't even finance debt they've already built up, much less reduce their arrears. Policies based on growth-choking austerity alone inevitably produce the exact opposite of its goal of lowering public debt levels, since sluggish activity or economic shrinkage not only dries up government income, but also raises outlays as more people become unemployed or require other state assistance to get by. That hasn't been lost on financial experts and market actors - including many who early in the crisis called loudest for clear and immediate steps by euro leaders to take the debt bull by its horns. They've begun heeding alerts from certain economists (notably Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini) that European leaders must re-think their inflexible Resplendent Austerity faith in a manner they didn't dare to before. Yes, debt-spooked investors demanded euro governments make it clear they'd understood the gravity of the situation and were ready to take all financial and policy steps necessary to save the currency. But no, markets don't want so much deficit-cutting austerity that the recessionary economic consequences undermine their own medium- and long-term investing planning and activity. MORE: Paul Krugman: An Alien Invasion Could Fix the Economy "Markets" self-interest depend on a positive economic outlook, which in turn means insisting governments stimulate growth when expansion doesn't look likely to happen on its own," says Gilles Moec, a senior European economist at Deutsche Bank in London. Bringing down debt is clearly essential to long-term economic stability. But with austerity measures and deficit rules now in place, many investors now expect efforts to be made to nurture growth. Those are completely contradicting demands in the current situation, but they exist. It's becoming evident that voters in Europe now also expect their leaders to attempt that difficult, perhaps even impossible, equilibrist act-or be shown the door. That thinking was behind the Socialist front-runner in France's presidential elections, François Hollande, pledging to renegotiate the E.U."s deficit- and debt-fighting treaty until growth mechanisms were added. Italian premiere Mario Monti has since called for similar moves, as have officials in fiscally frugal Holland. Justification for those demands continue to accumulate. VIDEO: Interview with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti On Monday news broke of Spain re-entering recession amid draconian spending cuts undertaken there. As in austerity-emaciated Ireland before it, the causal role of spending cuts in Spain's economic shrinkage has increased serious doubts about the wisdom of the all-stick/no-carrot line that has dominated euro zone response to the crisis. Similar skepticism surged outside the euro zone Wednesday, when new figures showed Britain had also slumped back into recession under the Conservative government's rigorous austerity regime. Given the evident limits of spending cuts alone, European voters - and markets - are simply demanding governments invest in growth measures that will prove just as useful to debt reduction as necessary belt-tightening. Leaders who refuse are increasingly being replaced. Time will tell whether those changes will help to save the euro - but it's already clear they can't possibly be the cause of the currency's demise if it does end up dying.