Trouble in Greece, Ireland and Austria is making markets fret anew about the strength of Europe's economic recovery _ and underlining that the crisis is not over for the decade-old currency and the 16 countries that use it.

Greece and Ireland are trying to slash spending as they battle runaway deficits, while Austria has seized control of a bank partly because of its bad loans in Eastern Europe. Together, the bad news has overshadowed recent confirmation that the eurozone as a whole left recession behind with 0.4 percent growth in the third quarter.

Continuing fiscal and banking struggles in Dublin, Athens and Vienna demonstrate that the continuing stress imposed by the crisis on the monetary union and the euro, launched in 1999.

The euro reached a 16-month high of $1.5144 in late November, but fell as low as $1.4526 Tuesday, a 2 1/2-month low. The euro's record high of $1.6038 was reached in July 2008.

Ireland and Greece both are running double-digit deficits and struggling with a basic duty of euro membership _ to keep budget deficits within limits.

"Whether or not a debt crisis can be avoided in Greece remains to be seen, but the whole affair has once more raised questions about the political and structural mechanisms of the eurozone," said Neil Mellor, an analyst at Bank of New York Mellon.

Concerns about the creditworthiness of several eurozone countries had receded as the economy appeared to be improving over the summer. The European Central Bank, which oversees monetary policy for the euro countries, indicated it was ready to start phasing out its exceptional credit support to banks.

But worries about debt-weakened governments returned after Nov. 25 when Dubai World, a government investment company with around $59 billion in debts, announced it was postponing debt payments. Its neighbor Abu Dhabi soon announced a $10 billion bailout.

Besides Greece and Ireland, Spain and Portugal also face scrutiny in bond markets. Worries have been compounded by the growing difficulties in Austrian banks, which do extensive business in formerly communist Eastern Europe where the recession has been particularly severe.

On Monday, the Austrian government took over Hypo Alpe Adria, a subsidiary of German bank BayernLB, which had suffered losses from bad loans in Eastern Europe.

"These banks are not of themselves a huge threat to Austria's finances, but there will naturally be fears about the wider potential for Eastern European losses among European banks," said Kit Juckes, chief economist at ECU Group. "This will just add to concerns about the final extent of the bailout burden for European countries."