Dettes et crise de confiance dans l'euro : analyse et voies possibles de sortie par le haut

In this article, the universalist economic model of homo ?conomicus put down by the presently dominant economics is considered as making sense mainly in the individualist Anglo-American mental, juridical and ethical universe. Therefore the present crisis of the euro can be understood as the outcome of a mismatch between, on one side, the attempt to institutionalize this Anglo-American mental universe in the European Union (EU), and on the other side, the continental European instituted imaginaries embedded in a world of meanings radically different and more holistic. In section 2, we base this interpretation on the hypothesis that the origin of the present european crisis is not to be looked for in what would be the ordo-liberalism of the German elites, but in the pervasiveness in the European institutions, through financial globalization, of the Chicago style neoliberalism. In section 3, we briefly present the theoretical framework in which the concepts of money, debt, sovereignty and trust are defined. Then in section 4, these concepts are mobilized to interpret the euro crisis. Finally in section 5, the consequences of this interpretation are drawn in order to envision some ways out of the crisis by strengthening the euro through the recasting of the European Federal Covenant.