Europe derailed by Portugal’s U-turn

derailed by Portugal’s sudden admission it needs an emergency bailout.
An abrupt Lisbon U-turn, after weeks when the collapsed Portuguese government insisted it did not need the external financial aid experts deemed inevitable, changed radically the mood going into a supposedly informal meeting lasting until tomorrow. Instead of pressure-free discussions on the long-term needs of the fiscally-challenged eurozone, relaxed analysis of bailout frontrunner Greece’s budgetary problems and political debate about what to ask of Ireland in exchange for a loosening of its repayment terms, ministers face a huge task trying to answer unforgiving markets.
“Procrastination is no longer an option,” analyst Sony Kapoor told AFP after the news emerged overnight.
After Portugal, “Europe has to arrest the spiral of bad news and inadequate action before it becomes a black hole, but there are no easy, obvious solutions any more”, the head of the Re-Define think tank said.
“The opportunity for a clean Greek restructuring may have already passed,” Kapoor warned. – AFP.