Rift over austerity plans is seen in ailing Portugal
Portugal's main stock market index closed down 5.3 percent on Wednesday — and provided "another nail in the coffin of the current austerity approach," said Simon Tilford, of the CER. "Portugal was one of the poster children for it, with a government that sounded even more wedded to austerity and supply-side reforms than the policy makers sitting in Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt," he said.