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Business Daily: Portugal's Euro Woes  

10/02/2010

Portugal's Euro Woes  

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Portugal's Euro Woes

The finance minister of debt-laden Portugal says he would refuse a bail-out from Europe.

Several indebted eurozone countries are committed to a new age of austerity.  Portugal's finance minister says he would refuse a bail-out from Europe; it would be 'anaesthesia'.

Investors have placed huge bets against the European single currency, the Euro, as worries grow about the indebtedness of eurozone countries like Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain. 

The argument is, if they default on their debt, that could destabilise the whole monetary union. These countries are now staring into the face of a new age of austerity, of high taxes and painful public spending cuts.       

We talk to Portugal's finance minister, Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, who says he would turn down any bailout package from Europe because it would be 'like anaesthesia'.  

And Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who is advising the Greek government, argues that Portugal and others are the subject of unfair speculation.

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