This Chapter explores the impact of the financial crisis on Brazilian democracy. We argue that while Brazil is one among many countries facing systemic effects of the 2008 crisis, domestic factors are also important to understand the level of the crisis, and the fragility of democracy at the present. Domestic factors explain, therefore the differences between Brazil and other countries in Latin America and in Europe.

This chapter will sketch how the EU has reacted to the financial crisis and in particular to the unfolding sovereign debt crisis, revealing major flaws in EMU’s architecture. It will not only address these design flaws but attempt to evaluate the underlying causes, reasons and motives of the architects and decision takers by comparing the more “federalist” Werner Plan with the more “intergovernmental” blueprint of the EMU of the Maastricht Treaty, connect it with the paradigm change on economic governance discussed by Schulmeister in Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-54895-7_2 and show the consequences for the crisis and its management in terms of efficiency, equity and democratic accountability.

In this part of the book, we discuss proposals to improve architectural and crisis management lacunas. While other partners of the network present own proposals, this chapter has the objective to sketch out proposals, which have been discussed or are still in the pipeline at the top level of European Union (EU) decision-takers and institutions to remedy lacunas, errors and omissions of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) architecture. A main argument advanced is that the reforms with a focus on “risk-avoidance” and stronger “surveillance” and “monitoring” had more success, while any reforms based on the principle of “risk-sharing have encountered major resistance, both for the financial market regulation and for the fiscal framework.

This chapter summarizes the findings of the theoretical and analytical chapters, and comparatively assesses the causes of the crises, the crisis management strategies, and their impact in a selection of case studies from the national level – Greece, Portugal and Italy in Europe; and Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela in Latin America; and the regional level – the European Union, and regional organizations and regional governance structures in Latin America such as CELAC, Unasur, Mercosur and Alba.

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