Crise da União Europeia (why pigs can’t fly)

This article analyses the roots of the European debt crisis, which started at the end of 2009 and embraced the so called PIGS, causing a global turbulence. It studies the historical genesis of the European Monetary Union since the decade of 1970, in connection with the dynamics of the international economy, the theoretical foundations of the Maastricht Treaty and the economic policies of the Union, as well as the evolution of the traditional macroeconomic indicators of the block and the PIGS up to 2010. It shows that the conservative thesis that populist policies are at the origins of the crisis does not fit the data.