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While public spending has aroused great debate about its purpose, effectiveness, and impact on the general government budget balance, particularly in the European context, and its effects on macroeconomic dynamics, there has been little examination of its determinants in the national economic debate. To remedy this, we propose a critical review of the literature on these determinants at the international level. Since the end of the 19th century, economic growth, the configuration of political systems, the democratisation of societies and the consequent conflicting social demands, and more recently, the ramifications of increasing economic internationalisation, have all been major determinants put forward to explain trends in public spending. However, the econometric results that emerge from international comparisons are often contradictory and do not allow us to determine the respective importance of the explanatory variables. To overcome this impasse, we propose an alternative approach that we have applied to European economies. Using a socio-economic approach that takes account of the role of history and institutions, we begin by highlighting the importance of the institutional complementarities that make up national growth models in Europe, and the role played by public spending. Second, we situate these dynamics in the context of the specific processes of integration at work within the Economic and Monetary Union, which are likely to explain the determinants of the trajectories of public spending in the member states.