The pleasingly named José Socrates, Prime Minister of Portugal, has resigned. Socrates is a fairly good egg: he created Portugal’s excellent drugs policy after the death of his brother from an overdose.
Portugal will almost certainly now have to ask the EU bailout fund for help. The important thing to note is that the reason Socrates resigned is that parliament had rejected his austerity plan. Now, the case of Chancellor Merkel, whose country will have to supply the bulk of the money, is that each country in receipt of funds should undergo ... er... an austerity plan.
And Merkel still has to get the bailout fund approval through her own parliament. She has lost a string of regional elections recently because she is perceived as being soft on the European debtors.
It seems likely that the UK, whilst not being a member of the Euro, will have to contribute a good £3 billion, maybe more, to the bail out, without any member of parliament having the balls to oppose it.
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