Uncertain Times

During this time, however, Portugal's government will need to borrow more money. From now until June, some €9.2 billion ($13 billion) of sovereign debt needs to be refinanced on the markets, of which €4.2 billion is due in April alone. Borrowing, however, might become unbearably expensive for the transitional government. spiegel


Bailout request seen as 'inevitable'

Bailout request seen as 'inevitable' following prime minister's resignation after failure to push through austerity measures. guardian

Note: the portuguese problem is the "legal corruption". Most of portuguese people struggle to. Politicians, magistrates, diplomats and so on, are the ones who can afford some luxury, because they are the ones whom still get great retirement pensions (keep in mind that the minimum wage in Portugal is less than 500 euros but politicians, magistrates, top militars, diplomats and catedratic professores, among others, can easly get 5000 or 6000 euros - 14 months a year - as retirement pension: where going Portugal get the money to still paying all live long for those ineffective people?! - think at unrelying portuguese justice system, at junkie level of some portuguese superior courses, at those ridicule portuguese diplomats, and, by the way, is you who want the portuguese army to go along with to war zones like Iraq?), and some were embroiled (helped by the bankers, of course who won big profits) in the corruption big businesses, where the public money went towards theirs offshore acounts. Romenia and Bulgaria are worse? I' m not sure: the "legal corruption" in Portugal go through absolutely legal contracts with obscure clausules which give always guaranteed huge profits to the companies choised by the government, and it went up to billions euros. I'm not at all sure that Romenia and Bugaria are more corrupts than Portugal. Anyway they will be the same huge problem to the eurozone, if they suced to enter it.

But corruption is not a concern to EU's officials. They just are concerned at compelling the portuguese government to change labour laws instead of to compel it to change laws to tackle the "legal corruption" that ruined the country.


Fears of 'Lehman-style' tsunami

The Greek debt crisis has spread to Spain and Portugal in a dangerous escalation as global markets test whether Europe is willing to shore up monetary union with muscle rather than mere words. telegraph

Note: Paul Krugman said that “the biggest trouble spot isn’t Greece, it’s Spain”.