"Finally, after 15 years of economic growth that followed its accession to the EU, Portugal's economy stagnated around 2000. Shockingly, in 2012, Portugal's output was lower than in 2001. The headline government budget deficit never fell below 2.9% of GDP and the primary balance was constantly in deficit, even after controlling for the effects of the business cycle and one-off and temporary adjustments (Marinheiro 2006, updated 2011). The parade of deficits led public debt to accumulate from 51.2% of output in 2001 to 92.4% in 2010. The private sector responded to the stagnant economic outlook by reducing its saving rate and heavily borrowing from abroad to finance current consumption, while investment fell as a percentage of national demand. In short, the behaviour of both the public and the private sector was unsustainable in the medium run. However, accession to the euro allowed both the public and the private sector to postpone the day of reckoning by taking advantage of the historically low interest rates. For example, while government debt as a share of GDP rose by 41 percentage points, interest paid on the debt barely budged; it was 2.9% of GDP in 2000 and 3% of GDP in 2010. Thus, the euro allowed Portugal’s political-economic equilibrium to be sustained in the medium run by the large capital inflows from the rest of the world, even if a correction was eventually unavoidable."
Isto vêm do seguinte artigo de Villaverde, Garicano e Santos, três reputados economistas espanhois, cuja leitura eu recomendo.
É possível que a convergência nominal conseguida graças ao euro tenha reduzido os incentivos à realização de reformas económicas importantes. Serve, portanto, pensar sobre como melhorar as instituições da UE e da zona euro, para corrigir este mau equilíbrio politico-económico, sem esperar pela próxima crise...
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