Integración internacional y globalización financiera de la economía española

This article takes a brief look at two events which were fundamental in the 1990´s in finally boosting the internationalisation of the Spanish economy, which took its first timid steps in that direction in 1959. Those events are Spain´s entry into the European Monetary Union as part of the leading group, and the parallel increase in investment abroad by Spanish companies, especially in Latin America. After outlining the effects on economic players of the entry into force of the EMU and the use of the euro as a single currency with the final step taken in January 2002, the article analyses the change in the country´s position in international investment, its possible causes and what it has meant for Spanish companies and for the Latin American countries on the receiving end of that massive investment.