[sergiosgc]

> I may be rusty on my Keynesian Economics professor's lessons, but shouldn't you reduce government deficits in expansion times, so that you can safely let the stabilizers kick in if you enter a recession?

Exactly my point. There was no expansion in the '00 decade, so debt growth was ok.

> Of course it was unfortunate, because the country (both public and private sector) were incredibly leveraged. Which is completely different than saying that it was the cause.

But the cause is also not a high debt level. Portugal was caught in a fragile state when a much wider crisis exploded.

Your chart is not the right one to observe the economy conversion success. This one is: http://i.imgur.com/ltAX8fe.png (it's the same data, viewed as YoY variation)