The financial crisis of 2008 pointed to the shortcomings of the institutional framework of euro area. After the crisis, the economic recovery of euro area countries has been uneven and slow. Some economists see the reason for this in the lack of structural reforms in countries that had a current account deficit before the crisis. Other economists believe there needs to be a reform of the euro area's institutional framework to make the euro area more resilient to negative shocks in future financial and economic crises. Post-crisis experience has shown that the structure of the euro area creates vulnerabilities to financial crises due to divergent policies and economic growth. The crisis has turned such vulnerabilities into instability in capital markets that, through contagion, has had a significant macroeconomic effect on changes in gross domestic product (GDP), unemployment and public debt in euro area countries. The measures of the European institutions after the public debt crisis in 2010 increased the negative effect of the financial crisis and shifted the cost of the asymmetric adjustment process to deficit countries. The results of the research conducted in this paper show that the improvement of the institutional framework has had a positive impact on the change in the GDP of the euro area countries. The results also point to the important role of financial openness to economic growth. However, the budget deficit contributed more to the change in GDP than the change in the institutional framework in the post-financial crisis period. This shows the significant impact of budget deficits on GDP recovery after the financial crisis.